Shades
by Xekstrin
Summary: Black and White are not colors. They are shades. Gradually, if you mix in a shade with another color, that color will be overwhelmed. These... are the darker shades of romance. Dark Ace X Cyclonis. Complete
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I has a livejournal but the community has too many rules. If I don't feel like updating for two months, I shan't!

Theme 15: Radio/ Cassette player.

**OoOoOo**

The Dark Ace held no illusions.

He strode purposefully towards the throne room, and even if he didn't know the paths by heart he would have been able to find it by ear alone. Pulsing music coursed through the veins of the stronghold, blaring out of every speaker, wailing guitars and drums. He, the fallen Sky Knight, ignored the many salutes he received as he passed the lower ranking Talons, barely contained anger radiating from his blood-red eyes. They winced, trying to ignore the music assaulting their ears, and tried to go about their daily routines.

The Dark Ace knew what he was.

He held intelligence beyond that of the cruel cunning of a petty thug, and with it came a human self-awareness. He knew that betrayal- his desertion from the Sky Council of Atmos, his joining with the likes of Ravess, Snipe, and of course Cyclonis, the careless way he threw his knighthood away and ruthlessly murdered the greatest Sky Knight squadron that ever was and ever will be- he knew it was "evil", according to the many religions, codes of honor, needless morals that normal people burdened themselves with. He knew he had a deadly temper, quite literally. He would turn upon his own Talons in a rage when things were at their worst.

But this…

This act transcended everything he'd ever done.

He stood in front of the automatic doors, which did not open for him. Muted, he could hear the very source of the disruption, the heart where cables connected to let the rest of the stronghold listen as well. The fact that they were songs from his _private record collection _only threw fuel on the fire. Kicking open the doors to the throne room, he was almost thrown back by the intensity of the music, unable to even hear himself breath, hear nothing but the pounding in his head.

He found his master exactly where he had left her a few hours ago, before he flew off on another mission. The only difference about the teen aged Queen of Cyclonia was that now, she held the Dark Ace's first love in her arms. One pale hand rested on the long, graceful neck of his girl and the other on her body, fingers roaming along her delicate curves.

Cyclonis had left her cape discarded on the floor. Angry as he was, he managed to sidestep the moving spikes that adorned the neck. They coiled and uncoiled as thought confused, not sure whether to take the shape of a hood or curve out from the neck in a deadly fringe

"The Dark Ace. What a pleasant surprise," Cyclonis said in her girlish, whispering voice, and miraculously the music stopped. His ears rang, but he could hear her clearly. See her clearer than ever, _fondling_ his girl, after having stolen her from his quarters along with a sizable amount of his records. "I didn't expect you back for some time, servant."

She smirked, as though she wasn't holding the Dark Ace's love in her loose embrace. He managed to bare his teeth in a matching grin, not allowing his often-troublesome master to get under his skin. Not this time. Show your military training, soldier. This is enemy tactics at its prime.

"That's my guitar," he finally said. "And those were my records you were just playing."

Cyclonis cocked one eyebrow up, glancing down at the instrument that hung at her waist from a strap that wound around her shoulders, across her back. It was a beautiful, sleek, black thing. She plucked at a few of the strings, a hesitating melody, and he winced at his prized _Robin_ being mishandled so. Not many people knew the Dark Ace could play an instrument- when they think of Cyclonian music, they generally thought of his co-worker, Ravess, who was a violinist without peer.

"I decided to give your music a try," she responded, cool as always. "Perhaps to get a better insight on my most enigmatic servant. I'm making copies as we speak."

"If you wanted my records, Master, all you had to do was _ask_."

"And miss you barging in here like a deranged cow?" She hit a sour note and blinked in surprise at the guitar, twisting the tuning pegs a bit until the sound rang out clear as a bell. "Not likely."

"I nearly had a heart attack when I saw them all missing."

"Well, you are getting on in years." Idly, she plucked at the strings of his guitar a bit more.

The Dark Ace had to physically restrain himself from lunging at her and ripping Robin from her grasp so that he could clutch it protectively close to his chest. He had a different sort of temper than the girl- while she let hers slowly build up like the snowfall that eventually erupts as an avalanche, his was a raging inferno of emotion and easily-slighted ego. Clenching his fist, he grinned wider, because there really was nothing else he could do. "I suppose you have an explanation for this act of thoughtless teenager behavior?" he asked.

"Now, now, my dear. Who said this was thoughtless?" She waved her finger in the air like an adult reprimanding a child, sprawled out on her throne in civilian clothing. He wondered where her battle suit was- wondered what possessed his master to act in such a way. "There was a problem. And this was the most amusing solution."

In spite of himself, even though he wanted to remain angry with her, he found himself wondering what was the story behind this. "...Amusing?" he asked, unable to hide his curiosity.

"Yes. Ravess was practicing that ridiculous song on her violin... again." The teen's eyes narrowed, her lips pressed thinly together in distaste. Shaking her head, she continued. "So rather than go through the messy business of forbidding her to play on pain of pain, I decided that she simply needed to stop of her own accord." A delighted, shark-like grin lit up her face. "If Ravess can play her music, the Dark Ace surely should be allowed to as well. I drowned her out quite effectively with some of your more obscene albums, and I saw her carrier ship leave abruptly not too long ago with a half-baked excuse. Going on patrol, or something."

A surprised laugh escaped from his mouth before he could control himself. He never kept his dislike for his fellow Cyclonians a secret- especially Ravess and her brother, Snipe. "I think of all the diabolical plans you've ever concocted, Master, that was the best."

She set the guitar aside, shrugging carelessly. "Oh, I know. And after she was long gone, I decided to keep the music going so you'd know exactly where to find your missing records."

"With you?"

"No, Dark Ace." She stared at him in disbelief. "With the Sky Council." He only twisted his mouth in a frown, eyebrows both rising up into his dark fringe of hair. She sighed, irritably. "Of _course_ with me. Now are you going to teach me how to play this contraption or not?"

"You seem to be doing just fine, Master. For a beginner."

"Well, I can't stand it when someone knows something I don't. If you ever want this guitar back, you'll have to teach me how to play as well as you do."

Sighing in defeat, he walked up to his master, who was standing now with the guitar strap back over her shoulder and a determined look on her face. He knew it was no use to tell her had been playing for over twenty years- since he was younger than her- and that it might just take her that long to get to the same level of mastery. Then again… he let his eyes roam over to her crystal station, where her latest projects were still waiting to be completed. She did have a complete understanding of crystals, a subject considered to be difficult at best. Such a genius shouldn't have too much trouble learning a new instrument. It would be like a duck to water.

Standing behind her, he put his arms over her bony shoulders and gripped her hands, placing them in the right form on the guitar. "Your thumb shouldn't be so high," he said, "Otherwise you'll have to stretch the fingers of your left hand further in order to reach the right chords."

"I see." From his vantage point, all he could see was the sharp profile of her face partially behind a thick veil of black hair, her violet eyes trained on his hands. She always got like this when something new was being taught to her. She absorbed it.

"I noticed you playing earlier- you seemed to have gotten the right sounds by trial and error, but you don't know the proper names for the chords, do you? So you can't read music sheets in case you want to learn a song. Here…" He pried her fingers loose from their death grip around the neck, pressing some of them against the strings.

"What are those little divisions along the neck called?" she wanted to know.

"Frets. They affect the way the notes come out, making them higher or lower, et cetera."

"I see," she said again, this time smiling thinly. Turning around in his arms, she planted a kiss on his cheek. "You're being very helpful to me, servant. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Die," he said without much interest, still focused on the guitar. "Now hush, and let me teach you."

She scoffed. "Yes, Master," Cyclonis intoned, rolling her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

-1**A/N**: Sorry for the mistake, it seems theme number fourteen is "Radio-Cassette Player". This one is the real fifteen- "Perfect Blue". None of you were in a rush to go an check the "Thirty Kisses" rules page so I doubt any of you noticed my error, but I felt like sharing it anyway. This one doesn't have as much Cyclonis in it, since I was in a Dark Ace mood. Next chapter will have more than enough girliness in it though, I promise you that.

**OoOoOo**

Was he nothing?

Flying faster than the speedometer on the dashboard could measure, The Dark Ace ignored the icy pain of the wind lashing against his bare face. Narrowed eyes barely able to see in front of him, he refused to wear the ridiculous red-tinted goggles of his fellow Talons- not that any of his Talons were with him right now. He was off-duty at the moment, but a sudden thought and a snide comment had brought him to such a rage he had to either escape from the Cyclonian stronghold or murder everyone that resided within, friend or foe.

And yes, that did include killing Cyclonis herself.

Tossing an extra strength power crystal into the engine duct while already flying at top speed had seemed like a good idea at the time. It still seemed like a good idea- it was putting more distance between him and his cage, wasn't it? Because that's all Cyclonia, and Cyclonis herself, were. Cages.

Anger bubbled up at the thought and he roared at the top of his lungs, snapping the nose of his Switchblade Elite downwards in a spiraling suicide dive.

Down into the Wastelands.

He was _not _a falcon resting on Cyclonis's shoulder. He was _not _a toy she played with when she was bored. He was a free man, The Dark Ace to everyone including his master. Not even she knew what his real name was.

She couldn't dangle that over him, at least.

Pulling out of his nose dive inches before crashing into the magma pits, he barrel-rolled just out of reach of the snapping jaws of the creatures that resided in those hellish lakes of fire. The engines were cooling off now, the power of the accelerator crystal waning after an hour of hard use. He burst through the cloud line again, blinking from the sudden pink light of the setting sun. Bringing himself to a comfortable hover, he watched as the perfect blue sky was swallowed up by shades of violet like his master's eyes, crimson blood, the blushing pink of an innocent girl's cheeks.

"Dark Ace?" the radio transmitter of his Switchblade made him growl under his breath, knocking his concentration right off the sunset and onto the static-filled voice. "Headquarters to the Dark Ace. Master Cyclonis is requesting your presence in the throne room at-"

He switched off his transmitter, throwing it into the Wastelands. He would keep flying, for all his life if he wanted. Revving up the motor, his Switchblade's engines flared and he shot forward again, no real destination in his mind. Just distance, and time so that he could think his life over.

_Finally hitting you where it hurts, old man, _he thought. _A god damn mid-life crisis. You're not reckless sixteen anymore- not the youngest Sky Knight ever to pass the trials. No, that honor goes to the only person ever to beat you in single combat- fourteen year old Aerrow of the Storm Hawks. The new Storm Hawks, of course. You killed the last ones just to say I told you so. Just to prove to the world that the name Knight was only a title, and a hindering one at that. A kid barely a knight himself, almost dying in the process, brought down the famous squadron so that he could truly be made of the stuff of nightmares._

_I am nightmares._

_I am the Dark Ace._

_I fly where I please._

_Except…_

He brought his Switchblade to a jerking halt, floating sideways and looking out at the vast expanse of blue ahead of him. This, he knew, was the very limit of the Cyclonian empire. Five more yards of flying would bring him into Atmosia, into Sky Knight territory.

Was it his imagination, or did the clouds seem to be taking the shape of a certain carrier ship? The _Condor_, where Aerrow resided. Aerrow, his only equal. A kid. A punk.

What the hell made him so special? Did he think he was perfect, some kinda boy wonder? The only reason he ever won that first time was a succession of lucky shots and help from his punk friends. After that, it was as though the protective charm of his undefeated history was broken. No longer could people say "The Dark Ace has never lost a battle, and never will. When you see him, surrender. When you see him, run. Or it will be the last thing you _won't_ do."

Now, it was, "The Dark Ace- brought down by a kid who isn't even old enough to fly legally. It's Karma, I tell you. Aerrow has the spirit of the old Storm Hawks in him, and one day that damn Dark Ace will be gone for good."

The clouds dissipated, revealing nothing but endless blue.

If he kept flying, he could escape that twilight. Follow the running sunrise forever.

He floated in midair, taking off his helmet and shaking out his black hair, red eyes blinking softly against the breeze. It was gentler now that he wasn't rushing over two hundred miles an hour.

"I am the Dark Ace," he muttered to himself, looking down at the helmet he held in both hands. Firmly placing it back on, he gripped at his handlebars and turned back around towards Cyclonia and his master.

"I _never_ run away from a fight."

**OoOoOo**

The sound of metal-plated boots struck the cold hallways of Cyclonia.

The doors to the throne room- automatic, familiar. They slid open to reveal a muscular figure in leather-and-plate armor, red and black mingling together with the seal of Cyclonia brazen, overshadowing any other decorations he might have. Cyclonis sat in her throne, resting her chin in her hand and smiling softly at her most loyal servant as he strode up to her, stopping at a polite distance with a bored, emotionless face.

_I've returned, Master, _he wanted to say, but when he met her violet eyes he suddenly felt stripped bare of all his armor and bravado, as though she laid bare his soul and his moment of weakness earlier today. As though she could read his mind, feel his resentment for her and her empire and aspirations of a new world order. Know that only hours ago, he was on the brink of desertion.

She held out one hand, and in it she clutched a single red striker crystal. An ephemeral cloud of death exploded from it, red power wrapping around him in the shape of a giant witch's hand, lifting him up off the floor and closer to his master. He didn't struggle, for once in his life, and found that the pressure around him wasn't choking… more like… protective. Or perhaps possessive would be a better adjective. Jealous.

So this is what it's like to fly without a Switchblade.

They were face to face now.

The Dark Ace smirked at her, tilting his head to the side in a questioning position. He winked and made a kissing noise at her, which usually was enough for her to completely ignore him in disgust or embarrassment. The Dark Ace, in other words, was back to his highly disrespectful self despite the danger he put himself in by doing so.

"I've returned, Master," The Dark Ace said.

For a moment Cyclonis said nothing, her expression unreadable. Then, she cracked a smile, dry and sarcastic. She set him down on his feet with a wave of her hand, hiding the crystal within her sleeve. Standing, the ruler of Cyclonia reached up and placed her hands on his shoulders, arching up on the tips of her toes to plant a dry kiss on his lips.

"I knew you would."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I love witty dialogue!

Theme # 8. Our Own World.

**OoOoOo**

"Eustace."

The Dark Ace stopped mid-sentence, blinking at her in confusion, and she smiled.

As usual, they were in her throne room (as if she ever met him anywhere else), and he was going off about some mission she had already forgotten that she had assigned to him. That wasn't to say she didn't take her job seriously- on the contrary, nothing was more important to her than the slow but eventual spread of her Cyclonian empire across all of Atmos, arms outstretched like the proverbial cancer. But she knew this "diplomatic meeting" as he so described it was a conquered Terra gone wrong. The Dark Ace was her most loyal servant and perhaps the only person she trusted fully and completely to protect her, but when it came to the bigger picture he could be hopeless. They were both sadists at heart, but the Dark Ace preferred a more _intimate_ sort of conquest. Mano a mano. As for her tastes, they were interchangeable.

He was not so versatile. Taking over Terras could be fun at first but he didn't like the actual governing and "boring" political aspects that came afterwards. And so since she knew he was wasting her time anyway, as he was talking her mind began to wander to various things, and a most delightful plan had sprung into her mind.

Shifting in her seat, she kicked her legs up over the arm and rested sideways, her arms up and her hands locked behind her head to form a natural cushion. "Eustace," she said again, staring directly at him and waiting for a response.

The Dark Ace visibly struggled with himself for a few moments before arriving at a suitably inconspicuously-veiled question. _What the crap? _was delicately translated into, "Is that supposed to mean something to me, Master?"

"Oh, you know what it means," she said.

He was silent, bemused.

"It's your real name, isn't it?"

Who said she couldn't bring her sadism down to a personal level? The Dark Ace's mouth was a thin, straight line on his face, his eyebrows looking uncertain as to whether or not they should be furrowed in anger or arched upwards in surprise. Cyclonis fought the urge to giggle, keeping her poker-ready expression neutral as always.

"Master," he said after a few moments, "You know my real name is the only secret I keep from you, but I'll let you know now it is certainly not _Eustace_."

She had expected that, and had a suitable reply ready. "As I'm sure you'd say, because you for some reason refuse to share that bit of personal information with me. Since "The Dark Ace" is a long title, and I, being the incredibly busy person I am, have little patience for wasting time, and since you do not wish to share with me your real name, I shall now refer to you as _Eustace_ when talking to you in private, as we are now."

It took him a moment to digest all of that. His reply was surprisingly boring, considering the Dark Ace's talent for always having something to shoot back with during their verbal sparring matches.

"My name... is _not_... Eustace."

"Are you saying you're going to refuse a direct order from me, Eustace?" she challenged, suddenly sitting right in her chair and leaning forward, her violet eyes narrowed. "Shakespeare said a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. Do not fear that I'm taking away your title as Dark Ace; I am simply venturing the idea of using nicknames from now on. It still means the same thing, to me at least. And it's easier to say."

His lips curled up in a sneer. "And what should I call you, Master? May I have the pleasure of bestowing a nickname on you? Perhaps..." he let his eyes trail along her body. "...Little Miss Quadrangular?"

Ah, finally things were getting fun. She deserved a break, especially after the recent victory over Terra Nimbus. Cyclonis sat back in her chair, turning her head aside to peer at the man from the corner of her eyes. "Now that's hitting below the bust size, Eustace."

"Assuming there even is one."

"Well, you'll certainly need to work hard to find that out for sure. Until then, I leave you free to ponder in your spare time."

"You're not going to let me finish my report on Terra Saharr, are you?" he guessed.

Her reply was quick, and cutting. "That depends on how bored I am by the time you've figured out a real comeback and not a cheap attempt at diverting the conversation elsewhere."

"It wasn't cheap. It was a justifiable question."

"Fine then. Point to you, Eustace."

"And you're saying I'm cheap." He snorted. "Using names- isn't that something best left for high schoolers, O Rectangular One?"

"I _am_ a teenager… Maybe I'm only trying harder to act more my age and less my title."

"This," he said firmly, locking his red eyes on hers and crossing his arms, "Has gone far enough. You're acting ridiculous, Master."

"I agree," she said, standing up and clapping her hands decisively. "This closed environment is suffocating me and causing aberrational behavior. How do you suggest we remedy this, my most trusted servant?" See? She could be nice, too. She'd purposefully forgotten to call him _Eustace_ that time. If that wasn't nice, she didn't know what nice was.

"I don't know," the Dark Ace said with the air of the utterly defeated. He probably realized by now that Cyclonis had danced around him to lead him to this very spot. "But I have a feeling you're about to tell me."

"We should go out. On a date. In disguise of course. It wouldn't be prudent for people to see us."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Cyclonis's Master Plan of the Day.

If she had said _We should go out to lick Ravess's bow collection clean _he might have looked more surprised, but it would have been a close race. Then he managed a slow smile. "I thought just a moment ago you were saying I'd have to work hard to get that sort of reward from you?"

"This is a date," she reminded him. "That's quite different from seeing whether or not I actually do have breasts under this armor."

"Fine then. What do you suggest? Dinner and a movie? Dancing? Can you even dance?" he looked her over again, red eyes critical. "Somehow I think dancing wasn't in your curriculum growing up. You were too busy learning how to tax and govern and smile and say the right things and use crystals of mass destruction to murder the innocents. Right… Master?"

The purposeful way he had delayed using her title was an obvious jab, but it irked her nonetheless. "If I murder anyone, it will be because they deserved it." After establishing that fact, she shifted the topic back to him. "Can _you_ dance?"

"I might."

"It was a yes or no question, Eustace."

"I can, in fact, dance. You still haven't answered _me_, by the way."

"No, I can't dance."

"Then we can't go dancing."

She snorted, crossing her legs at the knees and bobbing one foot up and down, voice impatient. "Who'd want to, anyway? It sounds ridiculous."

"No more ridiculous than the leader of Cyclonia going on a date with a man almost in his thirties. I could be your father, child."

"That would make this incredibly awkward," she pointed out. "And besides, in order for you to be my father you'd have to have had me when you were thirteen years old."

"Really? Just how old are you, Master?"

"Old enough to fly legally," Cyclonis answered ambiguously as she inspected her nails. "I'm sure if you really wanted to know you'd find out. It's basic arithmetic."

"You're..." he paused. "...Sixteen?"

She pointed her finger at him, smiling thinly. "Bingo. Now are we going out or what?"

**OoOoOo**

"This disguise..."

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

Lark inspected herself in a mirror, twirling around so that "Eustace" could get a 360 view of the former ruler of Cyclonia. She wore a shielding crystal in a bracelet that dangled loosely on one dark wrist. Though her body shape and height hadn't changed, the pale girl had turned into a black beauty with white hair that flowed all the way down past her waist.

"My bone structure is exactly the same. So is the rest of my body, except for minor details such as the width of my eyes or whether or not my ears protrude." Turning back to face the mirror again, she fussed with her hair a bit.

"I was referring to _my_ disguise," he muttered, very obviously disgruntled at the fact that she had given him wild, gravity defying red hair. Lark smirked into the mirror, locking her eyes (which had remained purple) with his through the reflection.

"I think it suits you," she said. "Red eyes, red hair. Matches your temper."

"I still can't believe I agreed to this."

"It's because deep down- or perhaps not so deep at all- you really want to. Trust me, Da... _Eustace_, I can boss your around to do all sorts of things, but I know when you're only following orders and when you're loving every second of it."

They walked out of the store without buying anything- she hadn't found anything interesting, and he didn't shop for clothes. With a smug grin permanently plastered onto her face, Lark seemed quite at home at the very heart of their enemy's land. That's right... they were in Terra Atmosia, home town to the Storm Hawks and headquarters to the Sky Council itself. The Dark Ace under any other circumstances might have relished the idea of fooling every person they passed on the street, but now he found himself as tense as a bowstring, his hands clenched into fists and his arms rigid at his sides.

"Relax a little, would you?" Lark demanded, linking arms with him. He almost flinched at the contact, only growing more uncomfortable as she rested her head on his shoulder with a small, content sigh. "You're spoiling my fun by being so uptight. This is a prime opportunity to judge Terra Atmosia's defenses. Plus, I still haven't been to their crystal store…"

"You're enjoying this too much," he hissed under his breath.

"Only as much as you are," she assured him, snuggling closer to her bodyguard.

"You are enjoying this _too_ _much_."

"I repeat: only as much-"

"Hey!"

They both stopped in their tracks. The Dark Ace's red eyes swiveled in their sockets, fixing on hers, wide with shock. _No way_, she thought, heart beating at that familiar voice. What were the odds of him being here, at the exact same spot that they decided to visit? At the exact same time?

Doesn't Finn of the Storm Hawks have better things to do than ruin her fun?

Wait.. Better re-think that last part, Lark.

They turned around as one, good mood completely vanished as they glared at the red head and the blond at his side. Aerrow and Finn, she knew. The blond surfer swaggered up to her, and it took every ounce of control she had not to spit in his face or sic the Dark Ace on him. He was ready to rumble, she knew, by the way his whole frame was quivering. She drew herself closer to him, hoping against hope that her hot-headed henchman knew they were completely out of their element here. A fight would be disastrous.

"You must be new around here," Finn said with a smile that would have been handsome if he just kept that obnoxious mouth shut. She forced herself to creak back a matching, cheerful grin, but the Dark Ace remained stonily silent, glaring daggers at the teen. "I mean, you obviously don't know about the Fat Penguin."

Fat Penguin? Confusion broke through the anger clouding the surface of her mind and she glanced at the Dark Ace. He ignored her, still burning holes into Aerrow with his eyes. The red head seemed to notice, getting uncomfortable as he surely began to realize that red eyes weren't very common. Lark unlinked herself from The Dark Ace, crossing her arms and keeping up a great big fake smile for Finn.

"You're right, we don't know about the Fat Penguin," she assented, ready to leave already. The Dark Ace had been right- this was a bad idea.

"I dunno either," Finn said, shaping his hands like pistols and pointing at her with a wink. "But it sure broke the ice!"

Oh, ick. She resisted the urge to retch.

"Oh my GAWD." Another terribly familiar voice caused Lark's heart to accelerate. Piper walked up to the blond, smacking the back of his head with a rolled up crystal catalog. "Finn, how corny can you get? Now leave the girl alone and help me look for this power converter already. Stork needs it to upgrade the _Condor_."

"Whaaat?" Finn rubbed the back of his head, pouting at her. "She and her buddy there looked a li'l lost, so I decided to help 'em out! You guys looking for anywhere in specific? I'd love ta… Show you around." He waggled his eyebrows at Lark, completely ignoring the Dark Ace who seemed ready to shoot death rays out of his unblinking eyes.

"We're fine, thank you." Lark attached herself to the Dark Ace again, pressing as close to him as she could.

"Yeah, Finn…" Aerrow said slowly, managing to tear his eyes away from the Dark Ace. He reached forward to grab at Finn's shoulder, dragging him away. "Sorry to bother you guys. He's just a moron."

"A _dead sexy_ one," Finn muttered as they walked away. He glanced at Lark over his shoulder every so often, almost causing a collision in the middle of the street. Piper took her catalog again and dealt another blow to Finn's head.

Wha-psh!

"OW! Piper! What the hell was that for!?"

Piper was just as passionate as Lark remembered her from their short time together. Of course, _passionate_ was just a delicate way of translating _prone to bouts of anger and obsession. _"Idiot! That guy was obviously her boyfriend- you were five seconds away from getting snapped in half."

"…Really?"

"Yeah, Finn," Aerrow had to agree. "The dude was seriously scary-looking. And did you see how she was all over him? You really need to learn how to spot those things; this is the third taken girl you've hit on today."

"Ooh, and I've still got the bruises to prove it."

Wha-pshh!

"OW! _Damn it, Piper_-!"

The sound of their conversation was drowned out as they disappeared into the crowds of Atmosia. Still not quite believing what had just happened, the two Cyclonians stood there like statues, blinking in confusion and surprise. But slowly the anger and tension slid from their bodies and they caught each other's eye, breaking out into nervous laughter. Lark let go of his arm again, stepping a safe distance away and letting out a huge sigh of relief.

"That… was unexpected," she said.

"This has been a most ridiculous day, Ma- er… Lark," the Dark Ace in disguise said.

"Well, sometimes one needs a break from the seriousness of trying to rule a country," was her reasonable response as she turned around and walked away from the spot, strolling past all the other stores they had yet to visit. He quickly followed her, catching up so that they walked side by side. Now that the worst was over, she reasoned, there was no way the day could get any more insane. Darkness began to fall, and even though they should have left the moment they were spotted by the Storm Hawks, she couldn't bring herself to say so. And since the Dark Ace never mentioned it either, she felt safe to assume that he didn't want their date to end just yet either.

"What should we do now?" he wondered out loud, looking upward at the first few scatterings of stars that had begun to shine.

Lark shrugged. "I don't know. I've never been on a date before you, Eustace."

"Oh, for the love of _God_. Would you cut that out already?"

Lark threw back her head and laughed, delighted. "If you stop letting it get to you, I'll have less fun calling you that and eventually stop. Basic rules of high school survival, my dear servant."

"Whatever."

They stopped at the air docks, where various carrier ships were floating, waiting for their crews to arrive in the morning and bring them to life. She walked up to the very edge of the Terra, peering down at the dark, swirling night clouds that covered the Wastelands below. She sat, letting her legs dangle over the abyss, and after a moment of consideration the Dark Ace sat down next to her.

"All right, Mr. Old-Enough-To-Be-My-Teenage-Father," she said, casually resting her hand on top of his. "Why don't you fess up? Why'd you really agree to this date, if you're so adamant against looking at me as a woman and not a child?" He didn't respond, so she looked away from the stars to find him staring at her with those blood red eyes. But that wasn't so startling in itself- it was the fact that he'd ridden himself of his disguise, fingers of wind blowing upward from the Wasteland running through his pitch-black hair. She started, pulling her hand away, but she was too slow. He reversed his hand, gripping hers tightly.

He was stronger than her only through brute force. If it came down to a fight (though they'd never fought before) she would win with her superior powers of crystal manipulation. So why was she so nervous? And he was smirking, damn him. He was up to something, she knew, and she was afraid she also knew what that something was.

"How cute," he said, putting her hand up against his face. His skin was rough, since he hadn't shaved since yesterday. It was things like that she liked about him, though. She _liked_ that he was older than her, though he'd always ignored any weak advances she might have made until now simply because she was younger than he. "You really are a girl, aren't you? Under all that verbosity and pompousness."

"I'm a woman, thank you very much," she said, snatching her hand free. "Girls don't rule empires."

"But they do get flustered when men start to get tired of their games. And I'm getting tired, Lark." He had put his arms around her shoulders now, pulling her up close to him. She had her hands up against his chest but didn't push away, looking up with violet eyes narrowed and wary.

"So what are you saying?" she demanded. "You're saying you can't handle a little flirting and you've just _got_ to have me right now or you'll explode into a shower of horny pink pixie dust?"

He snorted in laughter, turning away from her to chuckle helplessly, shoulders shaking. She had to admit it was a rather amusing mental image.

"You're terrible," he said, letting her go at last. "I thought I'd finally found what buttons to push to get you flustered, but you always seem to skip past that stage and get right to "Pissed Off"."

"I was only upset at how highly hypocritical you were being. First you say you're old enough to be my dad, then you go out on a date with me, then you play fast and loose, then you say _I'm_ terrible?" She shook her head, almost in pity. "Oh, Eustace, Eustace, Eustace. You're hopeless at these games, so I suppose I'll have to cut my fun short and say it flat out."

With a shark-like grin etched across her face, Lark reached forward and snagged the front of his shirt with both hands, yanking him closer than could ever be considered appropriate, even by Cyclonian standards. With their foreheads bumping, she said: "Now you need to let me know if my feelings are reciprocated or not. Otherwise…" one hand dragged up his neck, resting on the back of his head, the other tightly holding onto his shoulder. "…I'm wasting my time."

Slowly, he nodded, unable to unlock their gaze. "I know you don't like to waste time," he said, words carefully measured.

"All right. Good enough for me." He had barely enough time to register what she had said before she dragged him into a ferocious kiss. The Dark Ace's eyes shot wide open, freeze-framed every detail of her face before closing in an expression close to bliss. He held her tiny body tightly against his, feeling her heart beat out like a bird desperately trying to escape its cage.

It was only when they almost lost their balance and went plummeting down into the Wasteland that she pulled away with a huge sucking breath, her eyes still half-closed.

"We're too close to the edge," he said. She was surprised to see that one of his hands was gripping at her wrist tight enough for his knuckles to stand out white. She leant down and kissed them, too, and he let go of her quickly as if he had been burnt. Hmm. There'd probably be bruises there later, but that didn't bother her as much as it should've. Maybe she was a masochist at heart?

"I hadn't noticed."

"Yes. I know."

"Let's move a little farther, away then," she said, ever the voice of reason. "We don't have to stop. The date's not over."

"No, I mean… Figuratively."

"Don't tell me you're scared of a little lust, Dark Ace."

"I'm not."

"Then you're scared of exploding into a shower of horny pink pixi-?" she started, but he clapped a hand over her mouth, eyebrow twitching in irritation.

"Enough with the pixie dust, Rectangular One."

She clasped onto his hands with both of hers, suddenly pale white and milky again. She'd gotten rid of her disguise as well. "But it's so amusing," she said after managing to wrestle his large hand away. Then she grew serious, her spikes of jagged black hair that hung about her face unable to hide the adult-like intensity of her girlish features. "Don't play fast and loose with me, Dark Ace. I've been waiting quite a while for you to realize what I want, and I'm not ready to stop it so soon after it's finally started. What's stopping _you_?"

He paused, considering it. "I don't know," he finally had to admit. "Maybe I'm wondering where you learned to kiss so well."

Her lips curled in a kitten's smile. "That's for me to know and you to wonder."

"Like the size of your breasts?" he wanted to know, voicing it directly into her ear. It sent a surprising tingle down that side of her body, ending somewhere around her ankles.

In response, she pressed up close to him, whispering back, "Pervert."

"Says the one who raped my mouth with her tongue just a few moments ago."

"I didn't hear you complaining. Maybe you like being date raped."

"…We have a very twisted idea of dates, Master."

"Well, we do live in a twisted world, Eustace. Just gotta make the best of it."

"I'll try."

They grinned at each other, matching like peas in a nefarious pod.

**OoOoOo**

**A/N: **Who said evil can't be cute? Review, please!


	4. Chapter 4

_Red is..._

The color of love, if those Renaissance and the Romantic people are to be believed. Examining the painting in front of me, I'm reminded of the years spent being educated like a proper princess should be. Poetry. Music. Art. _Please write a five page essay on the use of colors and shapes in blah blah blah. _Of course navigation and war strategies and crystal mastery (my personal favorite) were a part of the curriculum as well, but father always stressed the importance of being cultured.

As if he was ever cultured. As if culture ever is going to help me rule this Empire, the weight of which he so carelessly transferred to my bony shoulders when he up and kicked it two weeks ago. I despised the old man so, and the fact that I am now Master Cyclonis when I'm definitely not ready for such a responsibility isn't helping much.

So this is why I'm having the throne room stripped of each and every piece of gaudy art and decoration and tapestry from it's smooth, dark grey walls. The Talons, my servants, are toting aside every bust, sculpture, hanging, and gilded doohickey from the room and dumping them somewhere in the dungeons. I really don't care where they go, as long as it's not here. I want it just as barren as Father's pitiful little wife Kittiwake had been. Barren is good, for me at least. If she had been able to have children, Father wouldn't have gone and raped some poor sap from Terra Gale and I wouldn't be here. And if this room still had vestiges of him left in it, I might forget I hated him long enough to mourn his passing.

"Master Cyclonis."

Is it odd that I'm used to that title by now?

"Dark Ace," I respond without looking away from my reflection. This particular mirror used to hang above the seat of power itself. The throne was the only object I decided to keep, seeing as how it was actually built into the room and not some tawdry bit of vanity Father decided to throw in here. It was a dark, massive thing, much too big for me. But countless Cyclonis's before me have sat there, slowly building up this empire I ruled today. In short, I liked it. I liked the history it had. History was my second favorite subject, one the many, many tutors didn't have to shove down my throat. "I see you've returned to me like the faithful man you are. How did the funeral go?"

"It went." The man in the doorway walked further inside; I could hear his metal-plated boots clanking against the hard floor. The plush velvet carpets were the first thing I had removed. "Representatives from Terra Squall wondered at your absence some, but you were not missed unduly."

"Story of my life." I let my eyes lazily trail over the room. "If there's anything in here you want, you're free to take it, you know. Don't think I haven't noticed how much you fancy the bust of your great-uncle." I nod my head to the bust in question, which is of the previous Dark Ace. I can see the familial resemblance to my own current servant: thick black hair, sideburns, long neck. It could have been his older brother, or maybe his father. Either way, there has always been a Dark Ace for at least as long as there has been a Cyclonis. It's a hereditary thing.

Reaching inside the long sleeves of my father's robe, I pull out a red striker crystal. Enforcing my will upon it, the crimson light within bended to my desire, arching out in the shape of a giant hand. It snatches the bust out of the hands of a surprised Talon, gently depositing it into the Dark Ace's outstretched arms.

"Good ole Erasmus," the Dark Ace says, setting the bust aside. "…God, he was nuts."

"Must go with the profession." Even though the one above the throne is already gone, I find myself entranced by yet another damn mirror. What's more, it's somehow plastered to the wall and my Talons are having some difficulty removing it. I've never really liked mirrors. They force me to acknowledge myself; remember my Gale roots. Pitch black hair. Pale skin. Cutesy face. I hate it. My Cyclonian will deserves a more intimidating body. Instead, I look like a child. My hungry violet eyes search my own frame, perhaps hoping that I might break free of this lonely shell and turn into something unthinking and terrible, like a raging storm or the snarling form of a protective gargoyle.

Red.

Startling, red eyes. The Dark Ace is standing behind me, observing his own reflection over mine since he's at least a foot taller than me. I hadn't noticed him getting so close- either he's that silent, or I was more absorbed in my own thoughts than usual.

"Dark Ace?" I ask his reflection.

"Yes, Master?" his voice, so familiar to me, brought me a small measure of comfort. At least I could count on him to not die anytime soon. The Dark Ace could never die.. Right?

"The situation Cyclonia finds itself in now is… dire. The Terras might break away from our hold at any time now that Father is dead." I press my hands up against the smooth coldness of the polished glass. "They don't think a sixteen year old girl can maintain an empire, silly them."

"I know." One large hand envelops my entire shoulder, squeezing it. "But for now, they have a right to. All they see is that the new Cyclonis isn't even an adult yet- they don't see you as the threat you really are, Lark."

Violet eyes cease their wanderings to pierce his reflection with an angry glare. Quiet fury is my thing- not a shouted order for silence that ends up as a screaming match like a _certain_ dead cretin used to do.

"…Master Cyclonis," he corrects himself after a moment, letting go of me as if he had been scalded.

I let the tension drain from my body, eyes cast down in speculation once more. It was certainly interesting to have the Dark Ace at my beck and call like never before. Under my complete control. "Well, I want to _make_ them see it," I say, rolling the red striker crystal around in my long-fingered hands. "I want an example made that no one can ignore or forget, something to terminate any belligerence before it even sets root. I want them all to obey me… the way you do."

"Out of love?"

Does he think that's funny? "Fear, my servant." I reach up, touching the reflection of his face. "Better than being loved, as the saying goes."

"_I _serve you out of love," he points out. "I served your father out of fear, and I can assure you he never held the complete loyalty I have for you."

"Then you're a very bad Dark Ace. You're not supposed to have favorites."

"It's not a matter of favorites, Lark. You know very well what I mean."

Enough of that, already! I raise my voice, angry. "I am not _Lark_. I am _Cyclonis_, and if I ever hear you talking that way about me again I'll rip out your tongue myself." My hand curls into a fist, knuckles against the mirror over the image of his face. "Know your place. Be content with it."

There is a frigid silence. I wait, patient. This is something that needed to be dealt with eventually. He closes his eyes, fighting hard to control himself in face of my outright rejection. The fact that I ever let our relationship get this far was the kind of childish care-free action I do not have the luxury of allowing myself anymore. The Dark Ace must serve Cyclonis without question. If not, the balance of power painstakingly constructed by my ancestors would be thrown into Chaos. And what would happen if we ever had a child? He had no family, distant or otherwise, and neither did I. The next of kin would be our children, and no one person can be both Dark Ace and Cyclonis.

There is a sword.

And there is the one who wields it.

There is no room for love in this damnable world my father thrust me into. Only… obedience.

His eyes, normally red like fire, are subdued and amused when he opens them. "As you say, Master Cyclonis," he agrees, bowing low from the waist. "What mission do you have in mind for me?"

The mirror cracks. Red drips from my clenched fist, smearing the shards that reflect a million facets of my smiling face. "As the Dark Ace who served the former me, I'm sure you know of the Storm Engine project my father attempted?"

"Yes, but the power necessary to generate a cyclone of that magnitude-"

I stop his sentence before he can finish that particular train of thought by whirling around to face him, one bloody finger pressed against his lips. I can feel the steady jump of his veins, much better than a smooth, cold mirror.

"Leave that part to me," I tell him. "But mark my words: soon, a storm will rage across all of Atmos, and only those who swear allegiance to me will be safe from it." I release him, holding my head high, waiting for him to challenge me the way he always would when I was still Lark. Smirking at his silence, I let my red striker crystal hover over the palm of my open hand.

"The Storm Engine was never completed," I say when no rebuttal is forthcoming. "Father abandoned it when he realized, like you did, that there was no way to power it enough for it to have any real effect. But the thing is, there is a way to power it. Father simply had neither the nerve nor the brain to accomplish this."

"And this mystery power source would be…?"

The Aurora Stone. But I wouldn't tell him that just yet- let him stew it over for a while. Surely he'd come to that conclusion on his own. "That doesn't concern you yet," I say instead. "What I need you to do is head for Terra Gale. Father's blueprints are probably hidden in the house my mother used to live in. I _know_ that's where he hid them. Peregrine wasn't half as clever as he thought he was."

"So you're calling him by his name now."

"Suuuure." I let slip a glance at my natural teen attitude, feeling that nothing else was more appropriate for the situation. "Why not? He's dead now, and the name "Father" gives him way too much importance. In any case, you should hurry to Gale before any fighting breaks out. If the Terras rebel against me, I want you at my side. But I'm sure you'll find the blueprints to finish the machine in no time at all, O dearest of servants."

"And if I don't?"

I stare at him in wordless silence, putting up an unruffled front but rather pleased that the fire in him wasn't so easily extinguished. That's what I had loved about him, after all. My answer is cool, quick, and sharp.

"Then don't bother coming back."

There. I had set down the law… for now. Face twisted into a grimacing sneer, he rests his hand over his heart, bows once more, and exits the throne room. What a good boy he's being. I hope next time he'll put up just a _bit_ more resistance to my newfound authority so that I could have the pleasure of breaking it again.

I turn around again to see countless other Larks looking back at me, violet eyes narrowed but expressions deadly calm.

"Get that broken disgrace for a mirror out of my sight," I murmur to the Talon nearest to me. He salutes and skitters off to do my bidding. Soon, the room is stark and clean with nothing but faint illuminator crystals shedding their pale pink glow about the room; in silence, I make my way to the throne itself, settling down with my hands resting on cold stone worn down by other hands from time immemorial.

Soon, I would be busy day and night on the Storm Engine, making my father's invention my own. But for today, I would allow myself to rest. I would have no disturbance until the return of my most dear servant. And I had no doubt he would return.

He is in love with me, after all.

_Red is…_

The color of his eyes, and the clouds stained by the rising sun. Storm clouds. But the storm, for now, is still brewing deep within the bowls of my Cyclonian Empire.

Waiting.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder clouds gathered above the stronghold, which wasn't unusual, but the severity of the storm that evening was something to be reckoned with. The lightning flashed, scarring the ground, and the booming, crackling thunder was fast on its heels. Another flash- and with it, the sound of failure.

Her scream of rage could be heard throughout the entire stronghold. Talons everywhere froze in the middle of what they were doing, in the middle of combat practice, in the middle of eating and sleeping and guard duty outside the walls. It was a raw sound, like the dying scream of a rabbit mashed between the jaws of a fox. Ravess, practicing on her violin, hit a sour note as her bow hand jerked outwards in shock, her hawk-yellow eyes (which had been closed in concentration) shooting wide open. Snipe, a bottle of mustard in his hands getting ready to apply liberally to his hot dog, clenched it so tightly the yellow stream shot out in a torrent and stained his favorite T-shirt.

And the Dark Ace cut himself on his own blade. When the piercing shout reached his ears his heart skipped five beats and the whetting stone fell from his nerveless hand. Wincing, he raised his dripping red fingers to his eyes before getting to his feet. Though his natural instinct told him to go to the throne room prepared to use deadly force in case his Master was in danger, he knew Cyclonis well enough to know she wasn't in any sort of trouble. Something had gotten her _exceedingly _pissed off, but nothing was threatening her life. Sure enough, five minutes later he saw her safe and sound, striding through the doors into his private chambers.

He stood with his sword in hand, one eyebrow raised in a silent question as he rested the flat of his blade against the open palm of his other hand. He was out of uniform, for once, wearing a white wife-beater and boxers. Certainly not the kind of garb he wanted his beloved master to see him in. His armor hung neatly upon a rack on the far wall. Robin, his guitar, was proudly on display next to it. He had only time to think about how incredibly rare it was for Cyclonis to enter the rooms of her servants before he realized what exactly was wrong with the teen aged ruler of Cyclonia.

She was covered from head to foot in slimy green goo.

"I can't believe it," she said, quivering so minutely he might not have noticed it if the tendrils of green nasties hadn't quivered with her. They dripped off her midnight black hair, trailed down her face, ruining her carefully applied makeup and giving her a rather raccoon-ish appearance. Storming into the room like the force of nature she was named after, she peeled off her gloves and tossed them aside. They, too, were coated in the green mess and when they made contact with the bare white walls of his room they stuck there for a moment before viscously sliding down, leaving a trail to mark their passing like the wandering snails. Quite unceremoniously shoving him aside, Cyclonis continued to strip herself of her working clothes and made her way to his bathroom.

"I can't believe that _girl _was right," she hissed, pulling her black shirt over her head and letting it lie where it had fallen on his floor. The Dark Ace found it was easier to ignore the fact that his master was half-naked in his room by considering how much disinfectant bleach was going to be needed to clean up this mess.

"How could I have been so utterly... ugh!" She opened a drawer, pulling out a fluffy white towel as she continued her rampage to the bathroom door. _When did she get so familiar with the contents of my room? _The Dark Ace had to wonder. Cyclonis raged on, oblivious to anything but her recent, most magnificent fuck-up. "The containment crystal should have- but then _she _probably used a containment crystal as well! She must have, after all, she was combining an eruption stone with a slimer crystal! She's not _that _stupid! No! I'm the stupid one! I'm the moron who thought she could outsmart that blasted-grah!"

The Dark Ace had to duck as a shoe- tossed wildly and randomly- flew over his head. It, like the gloves, stuck to the wall and stayed there next to his armor like some sort of bizarre trophy. He heard the water turn on in the bathroom and Cyclonis walked in still with some of her clothes on. She had left the curtain- and the door- wide open, so the Dark Ace had to avert his eyes elsewhere to avoid looking as she got completely naked within the safety of the warm, cleansing waters.

How, he wondered, was Piper of the Storm Hawks so important that she could aggravate his master just by being? She was just a girl, as Cyclonis was so fond of pointing out whenever she could. Setting his sword aside, he stood next to the doorway to the bathroom with his back to the wall so he could give her some privacy. "Is there anything I can do… Lark?" he asked the wall opposing him.

There was only the sound of water running and only steam escaping through the open doorway, so for a moment he thought she hadn't heard him. He was about to speak again when he finally heard her voice, considerably calmer.

"...No," she said, the sound of her splashing around in his shower accompanying her voice. "No, I'm fine." A moment of solemn contemplation. "…Thank you."

"I take it you had an accident in the lab," he asked the air, sliding down against the wall so that he was crouching, elbows on his knees and chin cushioned by both palms.

Sarcasm dripped from her voice. "Gee, y'think?"

"It is a _distinct _possibility."

More silence. There was a slurp- she had found his shampoo and a swift swishing sound could be heard as she scrubbed her hair manically. "Piper," she said, "Once told me never to combine a slimer crystal with an eruption stone. I took it for granted at first, but then I began to consider why she would ever attempt such a thing in the first place. Then it came to me that some sort of non-lethal bomb or an intricate trap could be used with this goop. Since it is my intention to one day capture that wench _alive_ I thought this might come in useful. Not to mention it would be poetic to catch her with a tool she herself gave me the idea for. I thought, foolishly, that a containment crystal would be enough to shield me from any harm, but no! Somehow the energy force from the containment crystal..." she struggled for the right words, her voice burbled by the water running down her face. "The slime bomb crystal- yes, I named it that- somehow fed off of the energy shield and what was supposed to protect me only exacerbated the damage."

For the first time, he grew slightly worried. He hadn't gotten a good look at his master and so peeked over the edge of the doorway to look inside, carefully examining her body for any blood or open wounds. "You _are _unharmed, right, Lark?"

"Yes..." She looked at him over her shoulder, her face neutral but her eyes looking almost sorrowful. She quickly turned her back again. "Except for my pride."

"Ah." He put his back against the wall again, resuming his vigil of the boring white wall. He needed to decorate it one of these days. Maybe buy another guitar. Another color, though. Maybe toxic green. He looked at the gobs of slime on the wall, considering them for more than the mess and headaches they represented. Yes, green would do nicely. "Well, we all know how delicate that is."

"Only when it has to do with _her_." Sharply, the water was cut off. He heard the slap of bare feet hitting the tile. "Damn her!" Cyclonis muttered, stepping out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around herself. She couldn't hide how her cheeks were wet from more than just bathwater, even though she wiped her face clean every few seconds. In frustration, she plopped facedown on his bed, one arm splayed out and the other over her eyes.

The Dark Ace got up again to sit down next to her, one hand resting on top of her drenched head. He caressed it fondly. "Feeling any better?" he asked, seeing that her rant was done and she wasn't likely to move from this spot for a good long while.

"No," was her muffled, childish reply. "I hate Piper."

"We've already established that. Anything else on your mind?"

"I really, _really _hate Piper."

Now he knew something was wrong, and it had nothing to do with a failed experiment or some girl not worth the Master's time. Lying down at her side, he pulled her into a hug and she offered no resistance, limp as a rag doll with her arms at her side and her face pressed against his neck, two burning places where he knew her crying eyes were hiding against his flesh.

"M'getting the bed all wet," she mumbled thickly, moving her hands to rub at her eyes before settling them around her bodyguard, holding him tighter than normal.

His voice was dry. "Since when do you care about other people's property?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I've just been a wreck recently, haven't I?"

"Well..." he trailed off to kiss the top of her head, wanting to assuage the damage somewhat.

"Don't pretend you haven't noticed."

"I don't know, I just assumed you were going through your period or something of that nature."

That surprised a laugh out of her. She sobered up almost at once, though, squeezing him tighter. He felt her heart rate increase. "Well, you're half-right." Letting him go, she put her hands against his chest to push him away, looking up at him. What he saw was something terrible- Cyclonis was wide-eyed and afraid. _Afraid_. He felt cold inside, wracking his brain for something to say. But there was nothing to say. Something terrible had happened right under his nose, and he had no idea what it was.

"Half...?" he propped himself up on one elbow.

She exhaled softly, closed her eyes, and whispered:

"I'm pregnant."


	6. Chapter 6

Soft sounds of conversation filled the air around them like a comfortable blanket. The place was secluded- a small cafe in an out-of-the-way area, a place only the locals knew about and the tourists blessedly kept far away from. They congregated towards the main arteries of the city, anyway. It was a beautiful day as well, sunny but with cold winds, so the two of them sat outside, and when the Dark Ace spotted a man not too far from his own age drawing luxuriously from a cigarette he suddenly wished he smoked, so that he could find solace in something so trivial as well. But he didn't pollute his body- not with alcohol, not with cigarettes. The only way he would ever go down would be in a fight, and he didn't want a thin roll of paper and tobacco leaves to be the one to finally deliver the killing blow to him.

He rested his elbows on the glass, his fingers running through his hair. "I only have three questions," he said, voice low so that only she could hear him.

Cyclonis took a long sip of hot chocolate and then reclined in her chair, the very picture of elegance and comfort while he felt as though he had been scrunched up into a tiny ball of consternation. "Ask away."

He let loose a long breath, closing his eyes. "Are you sure you're pregnant?"

"Very."

"But..."

"Trust me. I wouldn't worry you needlessly."

"I thought you had..." The Dark Ace wondered at the sheer awkward quality of the conversation. Things- things that normally wouldn't have made him think twice now had him wincing as he said it. "Some form of _protection_?"

Wordlessly, Cyclonis reached inside the front of her shirt and drew out a crystal that hung on a chain around her neck. Unfastening it, she held it out to him and he accepted it, eyes darting over its slender form. Trust Cyclonis to use a special crystal as a form of contraceptive. Sighing again, he placed it on the table. She left it there- after all, what good would it do her now?

"It's ninety-nine percent effective, so apparently we're the lucky one percent that defy expectations."

"I don't feel very lucky," The Dark Ace said, letting his head fall so that his forehead bumped against the table. "If your father were still alive-"

Cyclonis snorted. "Would you _stop_ that already? It's getting really old."

"Fine. But for my last question…"

He leaned closer to her, teeth grit.

"_Why the hell are we in Terra Atmosia?!_"

It was true. The day after she had told him about her problem, she decided another impetuous vacation was in order- though this time Cyclonis took it one step further. Only the Dark Ace was in disguise, since his face was plastered on Wanted posters in every Terra from here to Saharr. Cyclonis merely threw on some civilian clothing and went as she was, since few people even knew that Master Cyclonis was a girl, much less a sixteen year old girl who liked purple nail polish and tinkering with highly volatile crystal substances.

For the first time since she had told him the news, Cyclonis seemed fully back to her previous, mischievous self. She threw her head back and laughed loudly, causing a few people to glance over, decide nothing interesting was happening, and then turn back to whatever it was they had been doing. The Dark Ace winced at the attention, expecting at any moment for the call to go up and alarms to sound. For himself, he had no fear, but if Cyclonis were to be caught here… and now that she was pregnant with what could very well be the _next_ Cyclonis…

"I know for a fact that the Storm Hawks are out of town today," she said, trying in vain to hide her smile behind her hand. "So I figured: why go through all the trouble and hide my gorgeous face?"

The Dark Ace set his face in a firm, thin line.

"Now now, don't frown," she said, waving one finger in the air from side to side. "You'll get wrinkles."

"Regardless. We still have a decision to make. Or rather… you do."

She frowned, reclining back in her chair again. "Right. You're right. Well…" She glanced around her, as if she could find the answer to her problems conveniently lying around in Terra Atmosia. "I guess we could kill it."

The Dark Ace blinked. To be honest, the idea hadn't crossed his mind at all. It seemed so simple, he wondered at his stupidity for overlooking it. It was an easy, effective escape to her problems. Nodding slowly, he took a sip of decaffeinated coffee. He made a face when he found that he had left it alone for so long, it had grown cold. "That might be for the best."

Cyclonis averted her eyes, absent-mindedly stirring her hot chocolate. "Al-_thooough_…" she drawled out indecisively.

"Don't tell me you want to _keep_ it, Lark!"

"And if I do? What's so wrong with that?"

"You're-"

"Too young to have that sort of responsibility?" she finished for him, innocently.

He slammed his fist upon the table, relief flooding through him at the fact that she saw the answer for herself. "Exactly," he almost sighed. But when he looked up at her, he found that she was staring at him intently, eyes narrowed in distaste. Suddenly, he realized what was wrong.

He settled down in his chair. "Forgive me, Master Cyclonis. I forgot myself."

"Heh. Don't be sorry. To tell the truth, I found it incredibly amusing that you _forgot_ I was the master of an entire empire. That's a pretty big thing to forget, don't you think? A pretty big responsibility, compared to something so mundane?"

"…As you say, Master."

"Please don't start with your humble servant act again." She crossed her legs at the knee, yawning. "Besides, I'm not keeping it anyway. I realize I can't care for a child and rule an empire and expect to excel in both fields. If I ever do decide to have an heir, I want to be there at every major step to see that my son or daughter doesn't wind up a total loser. Or, god forbid, a Storm Hawk."

The Dark Ace buried his face in his hands, shuddering. "Bad mental images."

She laughed. "Sorry. But…" She paused again, her eyes glazing over in thought. "Maybe… Hmm… Well, I suppose, if I could…"

"If you could what?" He asked, peeking at her from between his fingers, suddenly wary.

"If I had a boy, I could name him _Eustace_."

"Good God, woman."

The apples of her cheeks turned very slightly pink. "Hey, I like it!" she said, immediately on the defensive.

"The fact that you're even _considering_-"

"What would you name him?"

He stopped mid-sentence, biting his lower lip. "Ah…" truth be told, he didn't have the slightest idea. Names weren't his forte. "How do you even know it would be male, Lark?" he asked instead. "What if we had a little Lark Jr.?"

The teen aged genius decided to ignore that, resting her chin on her palm as she stared out into space, thinking hard. "I've never thought about names for my first child. Because obviously I've always known I'd have to have one someday, since there's no other Cyclonis around to take on the job if I kick it. We could have a cute little bird name like Robin or Cardinal or Sparrow… or a more mundane one. Like David. Or…"

The Dark Ace continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Lark Jr. is a possibility. We certainly can't call him The Dark Ace Two Point Oh."

"We wouldn't have to if you would ever tell me your real name," she said, throwing a curveball.

"That," the Dark Ace said, "Is out of the question."

"Well, what are we going to tell the poor kid to respond to when someone asks him who his Daddy is? "The Dark Ace" is a mouthful for a toddler."

"I thought you were going to kill it?"

"Well I've decided I'm going to keep it!" She lifted her chin up high. "If I ever die, we need a back up. I'm carrying the future of Cyclonia, you know."

"Lark!" He glanced around them, aware that he needed to keep his voice low but still trying to convey the seriousness of his voice through whispers. "You can't just decide on the spur of the moment you're going to keep it! Not just to spite me! You can't bear nine months on spite alone, you know."

"This isn't spite. This is maternal instinct coupled with logic. If I have an heir and I die, you could always raise him-"

She was shocked right out of what she was going to say when the Dark Ace pushed his chair back, the metal screeching on the stone floor. He stood up abruptly, strode around the table, and planted himself on one knee in front of her chair. "Don't _ever_ say things like that," he said, hands clamping tightly on her shoulders. "I'd die before I let you die, Master."

Somehow, she managed to find a response for that. To not be able to do that would mean he had moved her, and to move her would mean that she might horde some deeper feelings for him than her pride could ever allow her to show. "And leave me a single mother? Great, DA. Just great." After a moment of consideration, she let loose a wicked smile. "Hmm. While you're down there, are you planning on proposing to me? Making it official? Cause that would be awfully nice of you, sweetie." She patted his cheek. "Then you might not look so bad when people find out you're screwing jailbait."

He let go of her, defeated for now. "Do you have to say it like that?" he asked miserably.

She blinked, expression totally blank. "Yes," she said bluntly.

"…"

"Hee hee!"

The Dark Ace made an "ugh' noise and stood up, clapping his hands as though cleaning them. "Fine. Keep it. But you're going to do it right, understand? I will not have my only child be deformed or injured in some way because you were fooling around while carrying him. Or her," he added as an afterthought. "You're not allowed to smoke, drink, or do any sort of drug whatsoever." As he listed them, he lifted three fingers one by one.

"What are you, my mother?" she wanted to know. "And besides, I don't do any of those things anyway. I'm far too busy."

"Then," he kept on relentlessly, sitting back down in his chair with his expression stern. He held up his fourth finger. "When you get to a certain stage of pregnancy you're not allowed near certain crystals. And any strenuous physical activity at all that might be harmful to her-"

"-or him-"

"-Like fighting, is also not allowed."

"On second thought, I think I might kill this thing after all."

He blinked. "Really?"

"…No."

"…Then let me finish." The rant continued, and he was getting so into it he didn't realize his voice was growing louder. "You're going to see a doctor regularly, as many times as you need to. No- now that I think about it, we'll have the doctor come see _you_." Now he was on finger number seven. "You're going on a diet."

"What! I thought when you're pregnant you're allowed to eat whatever the hell you want?"

"You _want_ to eat all sorts of things," he corrected. "But I'm almost positive there are certain foods you need to stay away from."

"I've heard some ladies get really crazy cravings."

"True. But you're going to fight it."

"Like pickles and ice cream and Tabasco sauce at three in the morning. Or _fertilizer_."

That made him stop. His eyebrows furrowed. "You're making that up," he accused.

"No, really!" she said, eyes wide to accentuate her honesty. "I read about it once. The lady would not stop until she had fertilizer."

"…I'm not going to feed you fertilizer, Lark. And don't expect me to."

"Humph!" She snorted. "Don't think you can get supercilious with me, Dark Ace. You're just the sperm donator."

"So I've been demoted to Sperm-Donator, now?" Shaking his head, The Dark Ace looked at his hands. "Number eight," he said, holding up the respective finger. "Don't perform any experiments on it, _please_."

"Oh, darn," she said, snapping her fingers. "There go my plans for a super baby."

He decided to not comment on that, because he couldn't be sure she wasn't serious. "Nine is you're forbidden from killing it after it's born. Keep it in the dark about its heritage if you must, but let me train it as the next Dark Ace. You're not the only one who needs an heir, you know."

"Starting to warm up to this whole baby thing, aren't you?" She looked at him in amazement. "I never thought I'd see the day when the Dark Ace decided to be merciful."

"I draw the line at family, Master. And number ten…" he held out the thumb of his left hand, thinking hard.

"Grow an eleventh finger?" she suggested.

"What?"

"I don't know. It seemed funny when I thought of it. Didn't quite come out the way I meant it to."

"…I'm sure. Number ten is you can't name it Eustace. And now…"

"…You've run out of fingers," she finished for him. "Unless you want to start using your toes."

After a moment of consideration, he sat back in his chair and drank his cold, sludgy coffee. A son might not be all that unwelcome, now that he truly took the time to think about the coming years. And he wasn't at a bad age at all to start this whole… "settling down" process. And it was true that they both needed heirs. When thought of in a logical way, it almost made sense to keep the child. "Yes," he agreed, positively beatific at that moment when he considered the future. Cyclonis seemed quite disturbed to see a true, honest smile cross his face. "Now I've run out of fingers."

She turned her face away from him, examining him from the corner of her eyes as though scared of what she was seeing. "Are you sure _you_ aren't pregnant?" she asked.

The Dark Ace's sole response was to drink from his cup again, still with that large smile plastered across his face.

"My God, Dark Ace. All I do is talk about a baby and you go completely soft."

That managed to knock a bit of sense into him. He glowered at her, upper lip curling up as he clenched the handle of his coffee cup. "I am not soft," he snapped, bristling like a slighted dog. "I'm simply making an investment. And- and good investments make me happy. Is it a crime to be happy?"

She smirked. "Big talk from someone who was just on his knee a moment ago, making all sorts of romantic proclamations, and for being so concerned about our baby."

She caught him there, he knew. Crossing his arms and glaring out at nothing, the Dark Ace mentally rewound his actions over the past few months. There was no denying that somewhere along the line his love for Lark had gone far beyond that of the normal Cyclonis-Dark Ace relationship, which was almost always insanely obsessive to begin with. "Sleeping with you was a big mistake," he decided to mutter instead.

Chin resting in one hand, she picked up a spoon from the table with her free hand and waved it in small circles towards heaven. "Didn't stop your from doing it- or rather, me- over and over again!" she said in a sing-song voice as she smiled up at him. When he ignored her, she decided to talk to the spoon instead, holding it before her eyes and adopting a serious tone. "Poor Dark Ace, he'll win in any fight but when it comes down to it, he's just as weak as any other man. What am I to do, poor, innocent little jailbait girl that I am? Perhaps I need not a man-" her eyes grew wider. "-But a _utensil_. Mmmm…" she closed her eyes, pressing her lips against the cold metal.

The Dark Ace stood up and pulled his coat off the back of his chair, jaw working in anger. "That's it," he said, grabbing her by the elbow, hauling her up, and leading her away. "You're talking to inanimate objects. Date's over. We're going home."


	7. Chapter 7

The Dark Ace stood up and pulled his coat off the back of his chair, jaw working in anger. "That's it," he said, grabbing her by the elbow, hauling her up, and leading her away. "You're talking to inanimate objects. Date's over. We're going home."

Only a few months earlier such an action would have been unthinkable- simply laying hands on her for any purpose at all, whether for loving caresses or hard grips of anger was unthinkable. She didn't, for once, think of the repercussions this might have- of his increasing daring towards her, which might lead to an eventual rebellion. Or maybe even thoughts of being her equal in any way. They weren't bound by Master and Servant titles for that afternoon, something that hadn't truly occurred before, not even in love-making.

Barriers broke when she wrenched her arm free of his demanding grasp only to hold his hand, locking their fingers together as tight as she could. She looked up at him in one of those rare moments when she was a girl and not a woman, Lark and not Cyclonis, and though she didn't realize it her eyes were wide with some sort of emotion she couldn't quite put her fingers on. His own face was rather blank- eyes focused on the road ahead, free hand casually slinging his coat over his shoulder.

"Maybe," she said softly, looking now at her own two feet as they walked through Atmosia. "I shouldn't do this after all."

"The baby?"

"No, these shoes. They don't match my purse."

He blinked, looking down at her in confusion.

"…The baby, doofus."

"Quit saying things with such a straight face. I can never tell when you're serious." He paused, smiling thinly. "Ah, well, I suppose it's more truthful to say it's hard to tell when you're joking."

"Pfft." She rolled her eyes and drew closer to him, linking arms. Amusement, disdain, loyalty, possessiveness- sometimes her own mood towards him fluctuated faster than she could register. Sometimes she wondered if this was true love such as teenagers like herself and even adults so fervently sought. Maybe it wasn't an emotion or a state of being in itself, but a strange and volatile concoction of all sorts of things. Maybe the darker things, too- like hate and lust, jealousy. Fear.

She hadn't given it much thought before now.

_Oh gawd_, she thought pressing her free hand against her forehead. _I'm so pregnant it's affecting my brain_.

"Feeling all right?" he asked airily, looking around them for a familiar landmark so they could find their way back to where he had stashed his Switchblade. "Morning sickness, perhaps? Even though it's almost one in the afternoon…"

"I'm fine," she said. "Except for the whole, y'know, I'm pregnant with your baby thing."

She felt the shiver roll down his body. "Somehow, when you say it like that, I lose some of the happiness involved with being- I mean, with making such a nice investment." He quickly corrected himself of whatever other foolish romantic thing he was probably going to say. The Dark Ace had surprised her in the past months by being… well… romantic. She hadn't ever expected him to be so tender towards her. In fact, it had been unwelcome at first. She expected him to treat their trysts as just that, random trysts to blow off steam, something not to dwell upon. That he might act any other way surprised her, and she didn't handle surprises well.

Surprise, surprise. Maybe that tenderness made you the lucky, _pregnant_ one percent of the females who used crystal contraceptives.

She considered surprising him. Dark Ace, I love you to bits and pieces, let's get married? Nah, didn't sound right. Maybe when he told her his real name she could say it. For now, many things, though they bound the two of them together, managed to wedge them apart. Winding, unwinding, it could be an endless cycle of anticipation, lust, deceit, loyalty, loneliness… An endless cycle of union, tenderness, fidelity, honesty… love? Shit, that didn't even make any sense. What the hell is love, anyway?

"This might sound juvenile, Dark Ace, but I have to ask you a question."

"Ask away."

"Is this…" she had to find a proper way to word her question. "This relationship that we have, what should we call it?"

"Hmm?"

"Labels, Dark Ace. Are we lovers, boyfriend-girlfriend… what?"

"_Lovers_ sounds less juvenile, if that's your only concern."

"To help rule a country and raise a baby… do lovers do that?"

"I'm not sure." He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "To be perfectly honest with you, Master, I've never had much time for female company, so I'm rather inexperienced in long term relationships such as the one you're suggesting we attempt. To put it simply, I've never had a girlfriend and never had the need for one. When I wanted a woman I'd go find one, but never for anything beyond a few nights or so. Does that clear any doubts you have?"

"Oh, my," she said, grinning with one hand pressed against her mouth coquettishly. "So I'm your girlfriend now? And your first one, at that?"

"Would you like to be, Lark?" he asked, looking down at her again, face blankly curious. "You're the first one who's ever interested me for reasons beyond sex."

Somehow she found it was too much to keep that gaze. She looked away, letting him go to cross her arms. "I'll take it into consideration. This baby should have a stable male role model after all. Or so I've read."

"You've been reading _parenting_ books?"

"Maybe," she said evasively. "I sort of stocked up on things of the subject when I found out I was pregnant. And the spawn-thing growing in my belly _is_ yours, by the way."

"Well, who's else would it be?"

"I don't know, Ravess?"

That surprised a laugh out of him, his eyebrows shooting up in shock. "Please tell me you aren't sleeping with her, too."

"Nope. Just you." She held herself because she was starting to get cold. "Only you, actually. Ever."

"Oh." He draped his coat around her and put his arms around her shoulders, leading her further away from the crowded center of the city. "I see."

And there- something that shouldn't have been so profound somehow sounded it when she spoke it out loud, another tie that bound them. Winding, unwinding- they reached his Switchblade in silence after that, flying away from the Terra and ridding him of his disguise. It was several hours to Terra Cyclonia, and she fell asleep on the way there, arms clutching his middle and cheek pressed flat against his back, feeling at home with the musky scent of him filling her lungs. When they landed he carried her towards her chambers, ignoring Ravess as she hovered around them, demanding to know where they had been this whole time and didn't they know the uproar they caused by disappearing like that?

"Well?" Ravess said, growing red in the face. "Don't you have anything to say?"

The Dark Ace stopped just outside Lark's private chambers, a vein bulging in his forehead as he tried his best not to murder his co-worker. The pink-haired, busty violinist was in his way, deliberately blocking him from opening the door with her rail-thin body. "Yes," he said, short temper snapping completely. "I do. Master Cyclonis is pregnant and if she gets a sudden craving for freshly fried human meat, I'll make it my goal in life to be certain you're the first one going to the chopping block, Ravess." He rudely butted her to the side. "Now get _out_ of my way!"

He stepped inside and the doors closed behind him with an ominous slam.

Cyclonis creaked open one eyelid.

"Somehow I don't think freshly fried human meat is on the diet, boyfriend," she murmured, shifting in his muscular arms to find a more comfortable spot. He smiled thinly, setting her down on her bed. When he made to leave she grabbed his arm, whining: "Nuuuuu! Stay!"

"Everyone saw me come in here, Master. What would they think if I didn't leave at once?"

"I gave you a direct order, Dark Ace. Stay here and hold me, or it's your head."

"…I truly fear what the temperament of our child is going to be like," he said, plopping down next to her and obediently holding her against his chest. She was soon fast asleep once more, and though he probably could have left without her noticing, he decided to stay.

Yet another bond; broken- salvaged- mended- fraying?

**OoOoOo**

"Like, z'oh my gawd! We're like, totally boyfriend and girlfriend now!"

The Dark Ace merely stared at her, toothbrush hanging limply out of his mouth. It was the next morning, and she could tell he was still groggy. Smirking, she pranced past him to her shower. "Nothing, Dark Ace. I simply wanted to say it in order to see your reaction. I was not disappointed."

She heard him laugh under his breath before she turned on the water, and smiled to herself. Today, there wouldn't be time to talk, much less go on another date, but she didn't mind. Ruling a country was what she was born to do, after all- and duty called him as well, out to do patrols along the southern border and receive a new shipment of leecher crystals she needed for her latest operation. Actually, let Ravess handle that. Having her out of the stronghold for the day would surely do some good.

So lost in thought she barely felt the water that cascaded over her, she jumped in shock when she saw a harm reach over her shoulder to grab the bar of soap. "Dark Ace…" she turned around, unconsciously covering her chest as he stepped inside the shower. "Can't you wait your turn? This is my shower, you know."

"I know." He rubbed the soap between his hands, rolling his eyes towards heaven. "And you owe me for using _my_ shower."

"You've still got all your clothes on, doofus."

"Well, that doesn't have to be true for long."

"Dark Ace…" She said again, trying to make her voice sound like a warning but that was hard to do when he was lathering her up. "I've- We've both- there's work and-" he kissed her lightly on the lips, eyes closed, quiet and uncaring. Work suddenly became not so important and she knew they weren't going to be leaving for a while. She put up a good fight though, managing to make weak little attempts at breaking away in between kisses.

Winding-

Unwinding?

Maybe one day it will get so tight they can't escape.

Or maybe it will break.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **The new opener to Storm Hawks pissed me off. Not only is Aerrow actually related to the original leader of the original Storm Hawks, the way the Dark Ace killed him was so lame. Not to mention he was the god damn co-pilot. He was RADARR. That's right, you heard me, The Dark Ace was the original _Radarr_. I always thought he was a member of the original Storm Hawks but I assumed he was at least one of the wingmen, you know? My first thought was the leader. I thought when he killed them he went nuts and faced them all head on. All of them at once, against him, and he slaughtered them all in a raging frenzy of murder and would emerge drenched in the blood of innocents and covered in wounds from head to toe.

No. He literally stabbed him in the back. That's cowardly. Evil I have no problem with but you better have the bite to back up your bite. Cyclonis proved herself to be an awesome fighter. The Dark Ace is a poser. A poser! I have lost all respect for the Dark Ace as he is portrayed in the actual show; in the majority of my fan fiction he will continue to live on as a bad ass.

But not today. Fucking poser. No wonder Aerrow kicked your ass.

I'm done now, enjoy the story… Sorry no babies today, I'm taking a break from the humor. It'll start up next installment.

**OoOoOo**

My master recently has drawn inside herself. After her... after _our _joined, crushing, humiliating defeat at the hands of the Storm Hawks, she dove into the reconstruction of the Cyclonian stronghold in a newer, more secure area. Of course, there had been nothing wrong with the previous spot- one couldn't blame it for crumbling when faced with the awe inspiring power of the Aurora Stone. She just didn't want her very surroundings to be a reminder of our failure. It was a miracle we survived.

But neither she, nor I, have ever been content with just barely scraping by. The fact that we survived it by the skin of our teeth was almost an insult. Which was better, I wonder? To be defeated utterly and die, remembered as the shadow that crept over Atmosia? Or to survive, to continue to be a threat and a constant enemy to the Storm Hawks, but never again at such a level as we were in that hopeful beginning? With the strength of the Aurora Stone, no one should have been able to interfere. With it powering the storm engine, a cyclone of unimaginable power would have swept across the many mountaintop kingdoms of Atmosia.

But it was destroyed.

By a _child_.

How could we ever hope to return Cyclonia to it's former power without that, our trump card? Our sure-fire, inexorable display of might that would crush Atmosia; grab it by it's hair and force it to kneel before us. My former master, Peregrine, had started construction on the machine in his youth. He died before seeing it's completion, but his daughter- Lark- my new master- she inherited that legacy of brilliance. She became Master Cyclonis.

But even though she completed the storm engine that her father attempted, she could never start one of her own. She was smart enough to know how to cover every possible route of escape, including constructing a new storm engine… just in case.

But no. The blueprints her father left her said nothing. Her own experiments were to no avail. Another storm engine was not forthcoming, and unless a miracle strike of lightning clove the cloudy skies of Cyclonia in two there never would be another creation like that spider-legged, keyboard controlled heap of monstrous steel and glass.

_No matter, _she had said, pride overshadowing her anger at defeat. She trailed one hand up along my chest to grasp my chin in her hand, shaking my head from side to side. _You'll be there, won't you, my servant? Promise me you'll die before you let my plan go to ruin._

I promised her.

But I broke my promise.

By the time the actual engine itself was on the verge of destruction, the Aurora Stone had been shattered by that fool Aerrow. The ceiling was collapsing onto my master, the world was howling with winds at a hurricane level. What could I have done? Killed myself for my failure? Such thoughts are not allowed in a scumbag like me. Leave that kind of honor to the heroes. I broke my promise and lunged at my master, Lark, pushing her down to the floor and shielding her small body with my own as hundreds of pounds of steel crashed down around us. Three ribs were broken, but it could have gone much worse if she hadn't summoned up a shield with the energy of her crystals.

I remember blinking in the sudden light after being knocked out, looking up at the ruins of Cyclonia.

My master was smiling.

_Smiling_….

Her face twisted in a smirk, she turned away from me and walked towards the ledge of the platform that had once been the storm engine's home, looking around her at the devastation. She shrugged loosely. _You win some, you lose some. I guess the same applies to you too now, Dark Ace._

Insane.

But true. I couldn't argue with her even if I wanted to. And since I was on the verge of fainting, I really didn't want to. I saw her walking away and stumbled to my feet, desperate to follow her. Without Cyclonia, without Cyclonis, I was nothing. Nothing but a back-stabber, a traitor to Atmosia. Among the Cyclonians I was regarded as almost a supreme being, a subordinate only to the Master herself.

Outside, I was a villain. They saw me as the scumbag I really am. And even Cyclonis knows the truth about me as well, knows how my image of being undefeated is really just that- an image. She knows about all of my underhanded tricks, my bravado, my real past as a lowly co-pilot, scraping at the Storm Hawks' feet.

And I got sick of it. I wanted power. I wanted fear. I wanted the earth to tremble at the sound of my footsteps. And so I murdered them all by surprise, a literal knife in the back. I killed them because they did not have my respect. I killed them because I hated the soft heartedness of their leader. He forgot that one golden rule- that it is better to be feared than to be loved. I knew he was just a man, and could die like one. But Cyclonis, I would never betray. Lark would never know the taste of my steel because I am terrified of her. Because I find it hard to look at her as a woman, or a girl, or even the new Cyclonis. She is a God. Untouchable.

She has me wrapped around her pinky finger and she knows it. She knows how much that attracts me to her- _finally_, an unstoppable being, an inexorable force of power. The kind of power I can't even bear to look at directly. The kind of power I wanted so bad. I wanted her because I could not have her. I wanted the power she promised with lies on her lips that with her, world would tremble as my shadow falls over them.

Of course, it was different with her father. I wasn't hopelessly attracted to Peregrine, for obvious reasons. He gave me the power I sought, and for that I looked down on him even as I served him.

But Lark.

Lark kicked my _ass_.

She keeps everything I've dreamed of dangling from a string as I lay before it, strapped to the ground unable to move anything but my eyes, searching for that lying promise and bulging out like an insect because I cannot reach out with my hands to try and grasp it.

And now I watch her, because there is nothing else I can do.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust:

She sits on her throne, unmoving, her gaze blank as she is kept away from me by a thin glass wall she has erected in her mind, behind her eyes. Guarded. She's talking, but I'm not listening to anything that's coming out of her lips, simply her lips moving. I find her so fascinating sometimes, it's all I can do to keep from snapping and forcing myself upon her just to see if I could or if she would kill me first or if she would accept me willingly. She waves one ghost-pale hand expansively to emphasize a point she's making and I nod in agreement, mindless. Such a white hand. I wonder how long it would take me to bruise it, if I gripped her tight enough.

Almost not breathing, she sits still in her throne like a ghost, something dead. The space between the dream and the reality. She seems so unreal right now and yet her very presence makes the world around her recede until there's nothing left for me to focus on but her. It could have been her master plan, her infallible way to destroy Atmosia. Simply existing would cause the structure of the world around her to fall apart until nothing is left but her, breathing quietly in the darkness, gripping the arms of her throne lightly but just enough to have her veins show beneath translucent skin.

"Dark Ace," she says, snapping me back to reality. Suddenly the world is real again and she is just a girl sitting in a chair much too big for her, smiling sardonically at me with one dark eyebrow raised.

"Yes, Master?" I say, dutifully.

She tilts her head to the side, letting a helpless laugh escape her lungs. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Of course I am." I focus in on her eyes and not her body. She is much smaller than me. Would fit in my arms snugly, or maybe slung over my shoulder as I carted her off to have my evil way with her.

"What did I just say, then?"

That makes me stop. I wince, gritting my teeth in the face of her laughter that washes over me like shame and enticement. Laughter that was surely soon in coming. "I, uh," I stammer. "I can't repeat it verbatim, Master."

At first I think she's willing to let it go, but no. She has to display that power over me. Propping her chin in the palm of her hand and her elbow resting on the arm of her chair, she smirked. "Give me the general idea, then."

If I'm going to admit I have no idea what she was babbling about I might as well do it with a parting insult. "I think you were just about to proclaim undying love for me."

"Not funny, Dark Ace."

"Really? Because I find it hilarious."

"I'm sure you do." She sits back in her chair, smile gone and head lowered so that her bangs half covered her violet eyes. Sinister in appearance, Master Cyclonis was a master at making me break out into a nervous sweat. "I'm tired of you gawking at me like a fool, Dark Ace. Get out of my sight."

"I love you too, Master." I obey her orders without another word, bowing low from the waist and making an about-face, marching away without the slightest hint of regret or fear in my heavy footsteps.

She remains behind me, I can feel her eyes burning into my back. In my mind I can see it, her so very still. She breathes, and the world is less real for it. And that is the way the world ends. Not with a bang-

As I walk, I turn around and stride backwards out the open doors, blowing her a kiss on my way out just so I can have a last glimpse of her before I leave.

She scoffs, turning her head away. I cross the threshold of the door and the automatic sliders slam shut with an ominous echo, cutting off the pale light of crystals that always emanate from her room.

I stand there for a few moments before turning and walking away.


	9. Chapter 9

"You're lookin' kinda nice today, Master Cyclonis."

I stare in wordless horror at my imbecile brother Snipe, my eyes growing wider by the second. We're in Cyclonis's throne room, reporting our latest success in the war against the Rebel Ducks of Terra Gale. Or at least, I was. He was just standing there like the lump he is, not good for anything but smashing various sentient and/or inanimate objects. And then in the middle of it all he has to go and say a thing like that?

Cyclonis tilts her head to the side like a curious puppy, blinking at him. This is it, I know. This is when she snaps and loses all sanity and kills my fool brother for good. She's smiling, but that doesn't mean anything. I've seen her smile and do things that made my blood run cold, not to mention what it might do to that of a harmless civilian.

"Oh?" she asks instead of brutally murdering him. Relaxing in her chair, she props herself up by her elbow and cocks one eyebrow up. "What makes you say that, Snipe?"

_Shut. Up. _I try to mouth the orders to him but he's oblivious, matching Cyclonis's kittenish smile with a big grin of his own. He's not used to her being... well... nice to him. Probably because he's always fucking up even the simplest instructions.

My brother shrugs. "I don't know. It's just that you're smiling an awful lot."

"Am I?" Cyclonis seems genuinely surprised, if also amused. "Well, I suppose that's to be expected. I've recently received some very good news."

"Ohhhh yeahhh..." Snipe says. "Yeah, I heard you were pregnant or something."

Oh. My God.

I have to stop this. Shoving my brother aside, I clear my throat loudly and give a weak chuckle to my Master. "Oh Snipe!" I say, emitting more very fake laughs and smacking him across the face. "You silly boy you, of COURSE Master Cyclonis isn't pregnant! HAH HAH HAH!" I turn my attention to her now, sweat pouring down my forehead. "Don't mind him, Master, he's been listening to too much gossip and-"

"It's true."

Cyclonis is at ease in her seat of power, still smirking at us. "I thought you knew, Ravess. After all, you heard the news from the father himself."

My mouth slams shut and I bite my lower lip. "I thought... I thought the Dark Ace was simply..."

Snipe cuts me off. "Congratulations!" he says, throwing one clenched fist up into the air. "Long live the future ruler of Cyclonia!"

Cyclonis is a bit off put at his enthusiasm. Her eyebrows furrowing, she is silent for a small amount of time before grudgingly responding with a muttered: "...Thank you."

"This means you're going to throw a huge-ass party, right?" Snipe asks. "There's gonna be lots of booze and stuff?"

"...I... well, I suppose if the Talons want to celebrate, they ca-"

"All right!" Snipe doesn't wait to hear anymore. He jumps in joy, tossing his mace into the air and catching it with a relish. "_Kick ass_!" he shouts, running from the throne room without even so much as a good bye or a request to be excused from the room.

It's just me and her now. My mouth is as dry as cotton balls.

Cyclonis, as usual, shares none of my concern. She tosses one leg over the other and smirks. "I assume you'll be in charge of music?" she asks me. I nod, mindless. "Heh. Do whatever you wish. Now, about this latest mission..."

**OoOoOo**

**A/N**: Short and crappy, but I just needed an excuse for Snipe to be retarded and Ravess to get shot down again.

I'm still upset with the Dark Ace for being a poser and thus he gets absolutely no screen time in this chapter, even though the story is supposed to be about him and Cyclonis. The next chapter will be a serious fiction dealing with trust and betrayal, and the one after that returns to DA and Cyclonis choosing a name for the baby and what not. Maybe there'll be a mini section of Ravess and Snipe deciding on decorations for the baby shower. Of course they're not going to call it a baby shower (even though that's what it is) because evil villains don't do baby showers. They just... don't.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Do you want to know why Cyclonis hasn't taken over the world yet? It's because she's too busy canoodling with the Dark Ace, that's why! That's also why she hasn't shown up since freaking episode six. Damn, I miss her... Anyway as you can see the Dark Ace is slowly gaining the right to have a romance in this story again. Hmph.

**OoOoOo**

"I have a present for you, Master."

Cyclonis looked up from her desk, protective goggles not hiding how she blinked in confusion. It took her a moment to drag herself away from the crystal experiment in front of her and turn around in her seat, one arm draped over the back of the chair and the other still inching towards a tool. Her thick goggles couldn't hide her irritation, either, and definitely not the way her lips turned down in a definite frown.

The Dark Ace stood in the doorway to her private study, hands behind his back and a devilish grin on his face. Neither of them said anything, both waiting for the other to speak. Cyclonis's irritation grew, and she was the first to bend.

"Well, get on with it," she said after a moment of this, waiting impatiently to get back to work.

"Guess."

"Chocolates and flowers." The overlord of the Cyclonian empire said, voice dry as Terra Saharr and completely void of humor. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to get back to her project, and lover or no, the Dark Ace was rapidly gaining rank in her "To Kill" list.

"No," he said, shark-like grin widening to a leer.

This was no innocent smile, she realized, but the face of a killer. So she had to assume according to this that this was no innocent gift he had brought her. Her interest finally roused, she stood up and tore her goggles off, taking a few eager steps forward, eyes trying to peer at what the Dark Ace hid. "What, then?" she said. "Is it one of the Storm Hawks?"

With any luck, he had Aerrow's head hiding behind his back.

"Someone a little older, and just as important." He sidestepped, motioning to the open door. His hands were empty. "Why don't you go out and see?"

Glancing at him curiously as she passed, she stepped outside to see two guards holding a female prisoner between them. She had already been beaten severely, and hung now with her head limply falling against her chest. The only thing keeping her from falling to the floor were the iron grips of the two Talons who smirked smugly at her now, expecting praise and reward.

Cyclonis moved forward, taking a handful of purple hair and lifting Starling's head up so that she could look into those foggy green eyes, flickering in and out of lucidity. "Well well well," the Master said, smile spreading across her face. "You've caught a little birdie for me to play with. Well done, Dark Ace."

"I knew you'd be pleased."

"Much better than chocolates, that's for sure." She examined Starling's face for a moment before turning around to smirk at her servant. "And prettier than a flower." The Dark Ace lost his smirk for a half a second, and Cyclonis laughed. "Don't tell me you're jealous. What?" She put a hand on his chest. "You want me to call you pretty too? Hmmm?"

"No, of course not," he said, quite obviously sulking though he tried to hide it. The two Talons looked at each other in bewilderment, having never seen this side of their leaders before. "I just don't want you calling anyone else pretty."

"My pretty boy, you're so easily wounded." She kissed him, a brief peck, before shooing him away. "Now leave me to have fun with my new toy. She doubtless has information on the whereabouts of the Storm Hawks, and I intend to find out everything I can."

"My Lady, I've already tried-" he started, but she shut him up with another kiss, this one a bit more lingering. She pulled away, waiting for him to try and say something else.

"...All right," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and stalking away.

Cyclonis grinned at his retreating figure before turning to the two Talons. She cleared her throat, straightening her face and her voice to something more commanding and less like a lover. "Take her to the dungeon- a private room, if you would."

"Yes, Master Cyclonis."

**OoOoOo**

Starling was rudely awakened by a bucket of water dumped over her head. She gasped at the frigid temperature, so cold there had been chunks of ice flowing over her. Broken and battered, it took all her willpower just to sit there and gather herself long enough to take wheezing, short breaths. Her head was still lopsided, vision blurry, but her ears could pick out the sound of Cyclonis's voice in the dungeon room loud and clear.

"Ahh, you're up. How nice. I was beginning to think you were dead."

Starling didn't respond- couldn't respond. Instead she lifted her eyes up to that pale, lightly smirking face, still panting with the exertion of staying alert. She found she still couldn't move her head and so was forced to follow Cyclonis with her eyes as the overlord moved across the room. She stopped to pick a toxic green crystal up from a table full of unmentionable tools of torture. Speaking, the teenager walked back to Starling, grin widening as she tossed the crystal from hand to hand.

"You can't have expected any less than the greeting you received, Starling," Cyclonis said, pressing the crystal up against the Interceptor's face. Miraculously, Starling felt her throbbing headache and stiff muscles loosen and the pain drain away. Cyclonis pulled the crystal away when she was fully healed and Starling stood up, still a little woozy but otherwise fine.

"...I was... apprehended," Starling said.

"Oh? I hadn't noticed."

"I'm sorry for being careless enough to get caught, Master."

Cyclonis sat down on a nearby chair, snorting once. "Just be sure it doesn't happen again," she said. "I can't guarantee that you'll miraculously "escape" next time. And keep those reports coming in. If those Storm Hawks so much as breathe the wrong way, I want to know. Understood?"

"It'll be hard. Your talons often intercept my messages..." Starling rubbed her wrists as Cyclonis undid the handcuffs. "...No pun intended. And I'm constantly ducking suspicion."

"Ah, well, such is the life of a triple agent, my dear."

Starling averted her eyes and made to get up, but Cyclonis lifted one foot and planted it firmly against the woman's chest, pushing her back into the chair. "Ah, Ah, Ah," she said, waving one finer from side to side, reprimanding.

"What? I thought I was going to 'miraculously escape'?" Starling demanded, nervous tones creeping into the edges of her voice.

"Double traitor, you flit from side to side without ever truly winning anything..." Cyclonis shook her head, filled with false pity. "That should be punishment enough, but I don't think so."

Suddenly, the metal cuffs on the chair latched onto Starling, gripping her legs and arms tightly to the chair. Cyclonis laughed and reached for another crystal, this one bright red and pulsing. "And after all, if I let you out without a few scratches people might begin to suspect something."

Starling felt the blazing heat of the crystal, dangerously close to her cheek.

"This is going to hurt, dear. And consider it a warning, not to _ever_ be caught again.

"Next time, I won't be so lenient."

The sounds of Starling's screams were mostly muffled by the thick iron door, but not entirely so...


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** OK, ten down, twenty more to go... argh. My problem is I write them too long so it takes longer than the kids who write thirty one hundred word one-shots. This chapter is dedicated to **Malarkay** because she was the one who said "update soon!" that I actually felt like updating sooner... I don't know, the way she said it made me feel guilty! I'm not holding out, I swear! I just don't have regular internet access and if I upload too fast, people won't read it…

And for all those people eagerly awaiting the Dark Ace's full return into my good graces (that rhymed!) here it is.

**OoOoOo**

"Well, short as she lasted, that was a wonderful gift, darling."

She sat at the head of the table as was appropriate to her position of power, the seat next to her remained empty. The chairs closest to her on the long sides of the grand table were also mainly empty with the sole exemption of the Dark Ace. Further along the table and the other tables in the Grand Hall were a different story entirely. Talons of every rank were mingling and celebrating the arrival of a new Cyclonis. If she hadn't been so pleased with this news herself, Lark might have been a bit insulted that the center of attention wasn't her.

The Dark Ace smiled wryly at her, wine glass in hand. "Must we talk business during the baby shower, _darrrrling_?" he said, drawling out the last word, tilting his head to the side as he did so to peer upwards at her face. His grin widened to a purposefully ridiculous and mocking length.

Lark cocked one eyebrow up, hands frozen in the act of reaching for her fork and knife. "This isn't a baby shower," she said. "Incredibly busy overlords don't throw baby showers."

"Certainly seems like one to me. Also, I think we'd better do something about Snipe."

"Yes, he has gotten rather glib with me lately," Lark said, remembering how he had blurted out the news of her pregnancy with even less tact than he usually showed.

"No-" the Dark Ace's red eyes darted over to the far end of the hall. "-I mean I think we'd better do something now before he breaks the stronghold in two. He's had too much to drink."

"Either way, I've disposed of the Interceptor," Lark said, avoiding his gaze when he turned to look back at her. Her voice was barely a mutter, but that didn't stop the irrepressible Dark Ace from questioning her choices,_ again_.

His eyebrows furrowed together, mouth losing its grin in confusion. "Disposed of her body, you mean?" he asked. Lark shook her head no. "I thought you killed her after squeezing her dry of any information she might have?"

"I did," Lark lied. "She was on the verge of death." She busied herself now by unfolding her napkin, placing it on her lap. "And I couldn't find it in me to actually kill such a worthy opponent, so I dumped her in the Wastelands. Really, she held up remarkably under torture."

"You _what_?!"

If the Grand Hall hadn't been so loud with the sounds of celebration, his shout might have attracted undue attention. It was good for him that it didn't, because the look Cyclonis had on her face was that of murder. She put her hands flat on the table, arms tensing as she glared at him. "Don't forget your place," she hissed to him. "I've been thinking of doing something about you too, you know. You're continually challenging me and my authority, and I won't have it any longer Dark Ace!" She settled back in her chair, hands fiddling with a table knife. "You should know by now that I've always made the decisions best for Cyclonia. Trust me."

"But the Storm Hawks could have rescued her by now, you've released a threat back into the wor-"

The table knife quivered in the wood of the Dark Ace's chair. Cyclonis's arm was outstretched, hand empty still in the act of throwing it. He swallowed his words and she smiled, a terribly innocent smile that didn't belong on a face as sinister as hers.

"Dark Ace?" she said, voice querying.

His eyes were still trained on the knife that had sheared the side of one of his sideburns. It took her clearing her throat for attention for him to look back at her. "…Yes, Master?" he asked.

"I want you to shut up and do exactly as I say," was her simple reply. He wisely kept his silence and she continued. "You've been exceedingly irritating as of late. I'm just…" she rested her elbow on the table, smirking. "_Cutting_ out the cancer, so to speak. Now, retrieve my knife, Dark Ace."

He stood from his chair, the legs squealing against the floor. With a grunt, he yanked the knife out and stood at her side, offering it hilt-first towards her. She smiled, thanked him, and rested it on the table next to her plate. "Sit down next to me." He hesitated, red eyes going wide with something similar to fear as he glanced at the empty seat at her side. "I won't repeat myself," she warned him, hands folded in front of her, eyes trained on him expectantly.

He sat down, back rigid and hands on his lap. This caused more than a few Talons to stop what they were doing and stare at him- because he was sitting in Lord Cyclonis's seat. The dead one, of course. The current Cyclonis sat in her mother's old seat, lips thinly smiling as she surveyed the tables in the Grand Hall.

"You can speak now if you wish," she told her servant after a moment of this.

"I should NOT be here," was his immediate response.

Lark scowled, _tsk_ing under her breath. "All right, you lost your speaking privileges again for questioning my orders." The Dark Ace clammed up, his face growing more red by the second. Red from anger, and of course from shame and embarrassment. Cyclonis or not, Lark was still just a sixteen year old girl who was bossing him around.

"Now…"

Cyclonis linked her arm with his, resting her head against his shoulder with a contented little sigh. "This is much better, see?"

_So I really have been demoted to Sperm-Donator, _he thought, silently steaming. _Well then, lets see how she likes _this Turning in his seat to face her, he willed himself not to blink and stared at his Master with an utterly blank face. In return she did the same, only with one eyebrow cocked.

"Staring match?" she wanted to know. The Dark Ace made no reply, instead ignoring how his eyes were starting to itch and simply… staring. "This is actually rather amusing," she said after a longer moment of this, taking a sip from her water glass. "If… confusing. Permission to speak, Dark Ace."

"Uh-huh," he said, unrelenting.

"You're not going to explain yourself?"

"Lark.."

"What?"

"I _love_ you," he said fervently, suddenly grabbing her shoulders and kissing her full on the mouth. Not expecting this angle of attack, Lark was literally struck dumb, unable to reply. Finally, after all the bickering and sarcastic remarks they had shared over the years, all the times he had to actually _respond_ to being called "Eustace", he had found something to shut her up!

On the inside, the Dark Ace was cackling maniacally.

On the outside he simply turned back to his plate and began to eat his food without further comment, leaving Lark to try and rummage her blank mind for something to say.


	12. Chapter 12

Cyclonis threw the sheets of transparent papers onto her desk, rage seething behind her normally tranquil, cold eyes. They were copies of the sonogram she had been waiting so long to have, to be able to finally look upon the form of her successor. The Dark Ace had been there for moral support, but right now he felt as though the last person who needed help was Cyclonis. If things kept on this way, he thought, eyes trained on the crystal on the desk, there might be an explosion very, very soon.

"It's a _girl_!" Cyclonis raged at the Dark Ace, who stood impassively nearby, arms crossed over his broad chest. Pacing, Cyclonis brushed her elegant pianist fingers along the swelling in her abdomen, her mouth twisted downwards.

The Dark Ace forced himself not to be irritated with his uncontrollable master. "So it's a girl," he said, shrugging. "I don't see what the problem is, Master. Or do you think a female is incapable of ruling Cyclonia?"

"I wanted my firstborn to be a boy," she said, stubborn in the face of his logic.

"For a modern woman, you have strangely traditional tastes."

"Exactly!" the teenager said, whirling around to face him, one finger waving. "It's a matter of taste, not politics. I wanted a boy because I wanted a boy. I understand boys- I have no idea how I'm supposed to raise a young woman when I'm barely one myself. Tell me that isn't insane. Tell me that makes sense!" she reached upwards with both hands, pulling at her jagged black hair with her eyes clenched shut in frustration.

"You see?" The Dark Ace sighed. "This is why I said you should have killed it the moment you found out."

She stared balefully at him out of the corner of her eye, still crouching with her hands on her head. "Right. Right. And don't tell me if I kill it now you won't be mad."

"Well, it's not like I didn't want a son, either," he said, grabbing her hands and pulling them free of her long black hair. "But I don't think gender is a reason to kill the thing. A woman can be an equally if not more powerful ruler than a man." His lips twisted upward in a smile. "Aren't you proof of that, Miss Modern Thinker?"

"She's not a thing." Cyclonis wrenched her hands free, rubbing them to try and get the circulation running again. "She's our daughter, and your future master."

"That," he said, "Has the potential to be incredibly awkward."

"Yeah, well, get used to it. Your loyalty to Cyclonis comes before any sort of affection you might hold for Lark Two-Point-Oh."

"You're going to name her Lark?" he asked, ignoring the first part in favor of the second one, eyebrows shooting upwards in surprise.

"Perhaps," Cyclonis said, considering the idea. "Ah, this is so much more difficult than anything I've ever done before. A daughter I don't even have a name for yet."

"A rose is a rose is a rose," the Dark Ace said. "Whatever you call her will be fine… as long as it's not Eustace."

"Too much of a hassle. _You_ name her, or else I really will end up calling her Lark Two-Point-Oh. Imagination's not my thing." Suddenly tired, she moved to her desk and plopped down on it, fiddling the crystal and turning it over and over in her hands, a brooding expression on her face.

"Someone's not happy," the Dark Ace said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Reconsidering taking this challenge so early in the game, Lark?"

"Leave me alone, Dark Ace."

"Not even in the mood to argue. That's tragic."

"I have more important things to do than talk about this parasite draining all my physical resources." To emphasize her point, she began going over some of the reports her undercover Talons had brought in from their latest mission on Blusteria. But the Dark Ace, having long since abandoned the farce of following her every whim months ago (it had taken some time for Lark to accept the fact that he was no longer the utterly loyal servant he had been when she was fourteen and not screwing him every other weekend, but she was nothing if not adaptable) just pulled up another chair and sat next to her, peering over her shoulder at everything she did.

"See?" she muttered under her breath. "If you trained more and spent less time bothering me, maybe you wouldn't lose all the time."

"Does she move around a lot?" The Dark Ace wanted to know, looking down now at Lark's belly.

"Stop changing the subject."

"What, I can't be curious about my sperm donation, as you so like to call it?"

"She's not an it, but since you're asking, you'd probably like to know that she's kicking the shit out of me right now." Her long white fingers found their way to her swelling lump again. "She's just like you- hell bent on distracting me."

"I bet she'll look like me, too," he said, turning smug. "Those are some strong genes she's carrying."

"Stronger than the conquering-race genes of generations of Cyclonia?" Lark demanded, somehow insulted. "Fat chance. She's going to be like a little clone of _me_, which makes her five times more awesome than anything you could ever achieve."

"Hopefully she'll get a better figure from my side of the family."

"I'll have you know my breasts have gotten twice as big since you started calling me quadrangular, thanks."

"That's because you're pregnant- with _my_ daughter." He grinned, malicious. "And don't think I haven't noticed it. I have. It's overwhelming. Sometimes I think my salivary glands might combust from too much use."

"Great." She shrugged. "Too bad the rest of me grew twice as big as well. None of my rings fit on my fingers…" she bonked her head against the desk, depressed again. "I never thought I'd lose my beautiful body so soon to childbearing."

"You're not that big," the Dark Ace protested. "And your body is still beautiful to me. Because now, it's all mine." He put one arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him until their noses could have touched. With a widening, shark-like grin, he kissed her.

Cyclonis was deadpan, not at all amused as she looked up at him. "I am not yours," she said. "You're mine. Don't forget that."

"Yes, Master," he said dutifully, running his fingers through her hair.

"Say it like you mean it!" she snapped, slapping his hands away.

"OK," he agreed. "Even though you're six months pregnant and a very fragilely built sixteen year old girl, I still have an incredible amount of fear for you. I'm terrified. Honestly, I am."

Cyclonis didn't say anything for a long time. At first, the Dark Ace did feel a small amount of real fear for himself, wishing he had a bit more control over his gabbing mouth, but when Cyclonis's lips astonishingly turned upward in a smile, he felt himself relax and smile back at her.

"Darling?" she asked him, twining her arms around his neck.

"Yes, Lark?" he said, hands on her hips, not able to see how he was grinning like an idiot. Surely if he did, he would have adopted a somber expression again.

"…Are you wearing your jet wings?" she said, voice innocent as she tapped his nose. Not waiting for an answer, she reached behind his back and felt them strapped on for herself. "Ah," she said, grinning again. "Good."

Then, without warning, she snatched up the crystal from her desk and shot out a blast of pure energy, a red hand erupting form the tip of the stone. The Dark Ace shouted in fear once before Lark, grunting from exertion, arched her arm back and then tossed both him and the crystal out the window to fall towards the Wastelands below.

Clapping her hands as though to rid them of dust, Lark got up and shut the windows. Sure enough, a few seconds later the Dark Ace was hovering outside her window, palms pressed against the glass and face red as he shouted every obscenity under the sun.

"What did you expect? Someone's got to put the fear of god back into you, Dark Ace," she said, shutting the blinds.


	13. Chapter 13

It wasn't what she wanted. That's what she tried to tell herself as she ran her fingers along the petals, fighting back a pleased smile. This was useless, impractical, a waste of money, and downright ridiculous.

She had no place for romance in her life.

But the flowers he left on her desk, just where she could be able to see them, made her unable to do anything but stare at them, stroke them lovingly, and wait impatiently for him to come home.


	14. Chapter 14

The doors to his room burst open and he found himself being clutched by a panicked Cyclonis. She flew against him, arms wrapping around his waist and chest and face pressed against the hollow of his neck, the swell of their baby all the more noticeable from her petite frame in his arms. He stumbled backwards a few steps, at once feeling the way her thin body was quivering uncontrollably.

"What's wrong?" the Dark Ace demanded, pushing her away long enough to see the fear in her eyes.

"It's- the baby," Cyclonis managed to get out between grit teeth. "She's-"

His red eyes widened. "Are you- I mean is it time- isn't it too early?"

"No, this is different," she was quick to reassure him. "Just- she's never done this before!"

"Done _what_?" he almost shouted, starting to feel a bit panicked himself.

"I don't know! It's-" she stopped mid sentence to close her eyes, another shudder rolling through her. "Agh, she did it again! It's _weird_."

The Dark Ace was already heading out the door. "I'm calling the doctor," he said, but she stopped him.

"I already did," she said, hands on her bump and eyes closed, perhaps hoping that she could somehow telepathically transmit calm to the baby. "I'm not that hysterical that I don't know what to do when something weird is happening, thanks."

Still wanting to go and get help just to feel like he was doing something, the Dark Ace figured that if she was well enough to be sharp with him things couldn't be that bad. So instead he sat down next to her, one hand on top of hers. "Can you describe it to me?" he asked, but soon enough he felt it himself. Her belly rolled under his hand, a jerking movement that was different from the times he had felt his daughter kick or move around. He could only imagine what it felt like to Cyclonis. And then he decided he didn't want to imagine what it felt like to have a small person living inside you.

"What if she's in pain?" Cyclonis couldn't help but wonder out loud. The Dark Ace didn't say anything in response, so Cyclonis just sat as still as she could, figuring that the best thing for her to do now was to wait for someone who knew what they were doing. It was hard, though, with Lark Two-Point-Oh making that strange, new movement inside her. Soon enough (though it felt like hours) the doctor showed up in the Dark Ace's room, hair sticking up every which way and his clothing looking like he had put them on in the dark. Considering it was three in the morning, that was probably exactly what he had done.

There were five tense minutes they had to wait through while the doctor examined Cyclonis. When he was done, he straightened up with a sigh, hands on his lower back as he stretched. "Master Cyclonis," he said with a somber face. "I understand that you're new in motherhood, so some things might seem odd to you-"

"Cut the bullshit," Cyclonis snapped. He swallowed nervously, stopping short of what he was going to say. Standing up and ignoring the next time the baby moved, she glared at him. "Tell me what's wrong right now or I won't rest until I see your tongue being nailed to the wall!"

The doctor looked from her to her manservant, who seemed more than ready to carry out his Master's wishes at a moment notice. When the Dark Ace stood up, the doctor scurried back a few feet, blurting out:

_"She has hiccups!"_

The Dark Ace stopped in his tracks, one eyebrow quirking up. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder at Cyclonis, who stood rigid with her arms at her side.

"...Oh," she said at last, crossing her arms and glancing aside.


	15. Chapter 15

_**He does not fight. He explodes. She does not do battle- she dances, frolics. There's nothing he wants more than to finish it all but she enjoys the game, enjoys the twists, most of all she adores being the one who moves the pawns and shifts the rules to fit her whims, assuming you can actually recreate such an obscure concept as "rules" in her gray world, try to pin your black and white standards to her unknowable mind. He fits that world better, a simple man with black and white and crimson at the center, the red ace that lies at the center of the deck of cards she holds in the palm of her hand.**_

_**She rests one finger on the top of the stack. Lets them flutter forward until she finds the one she wants. He might have resisted if he realized how utterly out of control he was- and maybe he did know, to some extent. Maybe that was why he kept the complications to a minimal: obey the Master, no matter what.**_

_**Maybe that was why he flew into a rage whenever he saw Aerrow, the paragon of freedom.**_

"One of these days, we should spar," she told him, leaning over the balcony that overlooked the training grounds. The Switchblades were all parked, cadets itching to fly and practice maneuvers, and the two were watching them. She simply enjoyed the show of the engine flames and the crystal exhaust, but he was watching them with the critical eye of a veteran dog fighter.

"What?" he said after spotting three Talons who hadn't even bothered to strap on their parachutes, and was wondering what kind of discipline they were instilling in the little cretins these days.

She looked over to him, the wind blowing her long black hair like the banner of their proud country. "We should fight, some time," she said. "You with your sword. Me with my staff."

"But we can't-"

"I want to see how I hold up in a fight against you," she said again, shifting so that she stood up straight with her hands resting on her lower back, a look of tired suffering on her face. The day when the baby would be born was almost nigh- _past _"nigh", if you will, because the doctors had said that about three days ago. Whatever their daughter was planning, she was taking her time about it. "After this whole mess is done with, when I feel up to it I want to go out in the training grounds and jump around like a wild monkey. Indulge me."

"I'll indulge you, fine."

"But don't go easy on me."

"I won't."

"I'll know. If you do, I'll know."

_**Obey the master. No matter what.**_

"I won't go easy on you," he lied, and also turned to face her fully. His red eyes met hers without fear, without looking away respectfully. Their gaze was not broken.

_**At least, that's how it used to be...**_


	16. Chapter 16

"There's supposed to be a meteor storm tonight!" Snipe yelled over his shoulder at his sister, ungluing his eyes from the TV long enough to share that with her.

Ravess set aside her bow staff, busy replacing the string after her last one had been used to the point of falling off, it was so frayed. "And I should care… why?" she asked him, blowing a stray strand of violet hair out of her eyes. She sat cross legged on the floor of the private semi-kitchen in his quarters, since the only chair in his area was the Lay-Z-Boy in front of the tube.

"Well, I dunno, I figure girls like that kind of thing. Excuse me for being a nice guy for friggen once in my life."

"Whatever, Snipe." Again, she found herself wondering why she bothered using her free time being with her brother. Sure, she rarely ever saw him at work since they were assigned to different divisions, but that was a good thing. At least, she tried to remind herself of that.

_Must be a habit,_ she decided. _Can't go too long without insulting him or I go insane._

**OoOoOo**

"There's supposed to be a meteor storm tonight!"

Stork shrieked and dropped the wrench he was holding when Piper burst into the hangar unannounced to shout out that bit of information. Maybe not noticing the state of shock she had left him in, Piper plopped herself down next to him and shook his shoulder. "You're going to watch it right? Right? There won't be another one in like twenty years! So don't go to bed early, OK?"

"I…" his eyes rolled towards her, twitching madly. "What?"

"Meteor storm. Falling stars. _Whoooo_?" she waved her hands in the air, uncertainly feigning excitement. Stork blinked at her, uncomprehending, so she tried another tactic. "That many falling stars are enough to have a life time of wishes, you know."

"Yeah. Or they could all crash land into us."

"Stork! Pleeeeease?"

Stork shuffled down, hiding himself by sliding under the Storkmobile to work on the engine. "Why me, anyhow?" he muttered instead of answering.

"Well of course it's not just you," Piper said, rolling her eyes. "We're all staying up till the crack of dawn! It's more fun that way, all together."

"I don't-"

Stork looked up to see that Piper had already gone, and swore softly under his breath.

**OoOoOo**

"Hey bro, there's a-!"

There was a sound of a whiplash and Leugey whimpered once in pain, cradling the top of his head as Repton stalked over to him.

"I told you never to call me that!" the lizard hissed at his younger brother.

"S-Sorry, Boss," the raptor stammered, lower lip quivering quite visibly.

Repton snorted once. "So what is it?"

"Nah…. Nothing…"

**OoOoOo**

Lark looked up from the pages of her book, eyebrows raised. For a brief instant she looked almost normal, her face clear of that dark makeup and a genuinely interested expression gracing her features. Then she rolled her eyes and the illusion was gone. She was propped up in bed, rotund belly towards the ceiling, and only hours away from giving birth if the doctors were to be believed. So they kept her locked up in her room, constantly monitoring her for signs that the baby was finally ready to escape into the world. But so far… no contractions. No water breaking. No nothing, actually, except that the Empress had a lump the size of a healthy watermelon on her midsection. Lark was on the verge of ordering a cesarean section, but the thought of the disfiguring scar told her she should at least try to wait a little longer.

"I'm ready to burst, Dark Ace," she said to her servant. "I don't have the initiative to go parading around chasing meteor storms."

"You can walk, can't you?" the Dark Ace insisted, pulling on her hand. "There won't be one for another twenty years, Master. This will be the second time I've seen it, and I want to see it with you."

She wrenched her hand free. Crossing her arms obstinately, she sunk lower into her pillows and sulked. "Well, I don't want to."

"Fine. You want to sit around here, be my guest. I'm going out to see the meteor storm."

Lark sat up as he began to leave. "Oh no you don't! Not if I say you have to stay right here next to me till this business is done!" Against all thoughts of rhyme or reason, though, the Dark Ace kept walking. "Dark Ace!" He flinched, but ignored her as he reached for the door handle. He walked out, slamming the door behind him, and the Empress stared in open disbelief.

And then the purest anger she'd ever felt raged through her. Kicking off the blankets, she stormed after him with more vigor than she'd felt in weeks, not even hampered by the baby. Woe to anyone, man or woman, who tried to get in her way! Quite literally knocking aside a few fretting doctors and nurses, she found her way to the courtyard where the Dark Ace was waiting for her, arms crossed and the most infuriating smile on his face.

"You have a death wish?" Lark demanded of him, striding up to him and prodding him in the chest, hard. "How dare you-!"

He grabbed her by her shoulders and spun her around, one arm around her chest and his free hand gripping her chin to tilt her head backwards towards the skies. The night was clear, and no sooner had she looked up than the first streak of white light shot across the crystal, inky surface.

She felt something in his hands and managed to tear her eyes from the spectacle long enough to see what it was.

"Well look here," the Dark Ace mused, inspecting the diamond ring as though he was surprised to see it. "I think I caught a star for you."

**OoOoOo**

Ravess looked out of Snipe's window and smiled thinly. Snipe stood just behind her, easily able to see over her head into the night sky since he was a good two heads taller than her.

"This is _boring_," he complained, but she shushed him.

**OoOoOo**

The Storm Hawks had been chattering amongst themselves, waiting for the time of the supposed meteor shower, and just when Stork was ready to just give up and go to bed Piper grabbed his hand, holding him where he was.

"Look!" Finn, the one with the sharpest eyes, had seen the first star fall. Soon everyone could spot one, though, and cheered madly as it seemed like the whole galaxy would fly through the sky just for them.

"Make a wish, guys," Aerrow advised them all.

"Make tons of wishes!" Junko said.

Finn's head turned every which way, eyes frantically searching out star after star. "They're falling too fast for me to wish on them all!"

Piper chuckled. "Then you'd better work faster," she said.

**OoOoOo**

"Hooraaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

Leugey ran in circles in the dust of Terra Bogaton, scaly hands reaching upwards as he laughed. "How'd you know I wanted to see the stars fall, Br- Boss?"

Repton crossed his arms over his chest, settling down with his back to one of the small, stumpy trees that grew there. "A hunch," he said, unable to help a small, pleased smile crease his snout.

**OoOoOo**

Lark hunched over, her head bowed as she began to shiver. The Dark Ace held her closely, leaning down to kiss the base of her neck, biting it softly to leave his mark there. "I wanted to see it together," he whispered to her, fingers lightly tracing down over her stomach to her thighs. "I just can't control myself when it comes to you."

"You…" Lark seemed to have trouble getting the words out. "You idiot… fool…! Can't you see I-"

"I want you, Lark." He held her tighter. "I want you to be _mine_!"

But Lark said, "Ow… ow…! Shit!"

The Dark Ace blinked, the amorous glaze that had covered his eyes suddenly being wiped clean as he peered around Lark to see what she was doing. Her face was contorted in pain.

"Oh my God!" he said, the faintest notes of panic hitting his voice. "Is it- are you-?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice in case she started cursing him out.

**OoOoOo**

"Say hello," the doctor said to him, holding out a small bundle wrapped in pink, "To your new baby daughter. Want to hold her?"

Not many things could incite fear into the heart of the Dark Ace, but one look at those ridiculously large, solemn, ruby red eyes was more than enough. He looked from the doctor to his daughter and back again, taking a small step backwards. "Ah, I don't know- She's- is she _supposed_ to be that small?" he asked suddenly, scrutinizing her.

The doctor quirked one hoary eyebrow upwards. "Yes…"

The Dark Ace searched Cyclonis's face for confirmation. The exhausted mother shrugged in her bed, giving him no answer whatsoever. At least, not the kind of answer he wanted.

"Like mother like daughter," he said under his breath, steeling himself up to the moment where he finally dared to let the doctor transfer the baby from his arms to the Dark Ace's. "Well…" he said down to her. The baby met his gaze fearlessly, yet not haughtily so. But then they probably don't get too haughty until they understand that they're princesses. "…Hello."

"Give us a moment alone," Cyclonis ordered the doctor, and after a perfunctory bow he made his exit. Then she amused herself by watching her lover stare at his baby and vice versa, maybe trying to size each other up.

"It's like a little me!" The Dark Ace exclaimed after a few moments of this, apparently very shocked at this revelation.

"Yes, funny, that whole _genetics_ thing is true after all, isn't it?"

Outside, fireworks screamed as all of Cyclonia celebrated the birth of the long-awaited heir. Then, perhaps finished ascertaining any data she could gather from her father, the baby turned her crimson eyes around the room, not making a sound as she absorbed everything for the first time. "Look at that," the Dark Ace noticed. "She's curious, like you."

"Ah!" He was completely enraptured, fascinated by the pink thing he held. "She made a noise," he said, looking up to Cyclonis for guidance.

"They do that sometimes."

"This is too surreal, Lark. Here, you take her."

"If you run off again," Lark warned him as the baby changed residency once more, "I'll personally see to it that this child grows up without a father. Understand?"

"Yes…" he said reluctantly.

"Yes?"

"…Master," he finished with the air of one defeated. Then he brightened up. "Let's make another one now!"

The quiet, yet undeniably peeved expression on Lark's face was more than answer enough, but she elaborated anyway. "I am not a factory, Dark Ace! Now hurry up and… and give this child a name already so I can stop calling it _this_ _child_."

"Moa," he said without hesitation. When she looked at him quizzically, he shrugged. "I've been giving it a lot of thought."

"Moa Cyclonia," Lark said with a hint of a smile. "…I like the way that sounds."


	17. Chapter 17

Ravess stopped her playing when she realized someone was in the room with her. She had been lost in the music, eyes closed as she let herself flow with the notes that her fingers pulled of their own volition, not intent on any particular tune but simply to play for the joy of playing, knowing which notes fit together on what scale to improvise constantly, an endless stream of conciousness put to music.

She looked down to see Moa standing there at her side, looking up at her with wide red eyes. The heir to Cyclonia was five years old and always so solemn Ravess had to wonder if that kind of emotionless behavior was genetic or if kids that young could imitate their mothers flawlessly. But there was a difference in the cold, calculating gaze of the mother and the blank, patient gaze of the daughter, she could tell.

It was just hard to spot sometimes.

Knowing the princess never went anywhere without one of her parents, Ravess looked up to the open doorway, expecting perhaps the Dark Ace to be there with his arms crossed and a thin smile, or even Cyclonis herself, taking a break from work to indulge her eldest with a walk around the stronghold.

But no.

It was both of them.

Trying to swallow but finding her mouth unusually dry, Ravess cracked a smile at Moa. "Hello, Princess," she said, getting down on one knee to be at eye level with the child who held her job in her tiny, pale hands. "What brings you here?"

"Are you the one making that music?" Moa asked her instead of answering, voice small but incredibly sharp. Ravess glanced up at the Dark Ace and Cyclonis, who were watching the whole situation play out and seeming as though they weren't about to interfere. It was a bit like scientists watching lab rats.

Ravess took a moment to answer, so panicked at first she truly didn't understand the question. "Oh!" she said at last, holding her violin up. "You mean this?"

"I mean the music."

Ravess took her bow in hand and demonstrated to the girl that the violin made the music. Cyclonis and the Dark Ace shared a knowing glance. It wasn't a very big secret in the Stronghold that neither of them could stand Ravess's music. _And so, _they wondered, _would Moa share that trait as well?_

Moa's eyebrows shot up in amazement, her mind not having made the connection between the instrument in Ravess's hands and the sounds that it made before then. Then she held out both of her hands. "May I see it?"

"Bet you she's gonna break it in half," the Dark Ace muttered to his wife.

"I'm just shocked she bothered to ask for it," Cyclonis said back. "If it were me I would have just snatched it in order to break it."

"Well, she's too small to snatch things."

"Huh, you obviously haven't seen her when I bring her to my crystal lab."

"I mean, Ravess is too tall for her to reach up and snatch it."

"Shh!" Cyclonis tapped a hand on his shoulder, the other one pressed against his lips. "She's going to do it, watch!"

But instead, Ravess helped Moa hold the instrument up against her chin, but Moa grew impatient and screeched the bow against the strings before Ravess could teach her how, fingers pressed against random spots on the neck. Cyclonis, Ravess, and the Dark Ace all winced in unison. The sound that came forth was unearthly, but Moa stopped soon enough, looking first at the violin and then at Ravess in apparent shock.

"I think I broke it," she said. "I'm sorry."

"She said _I'm sorry_!" the Dark Ace whispered, sounding a bit affronted. "She never tells me _I'm sorry_!"

Cyclonis shoved him. "Will you shush already?" she demanded.

"You didn't break it, you just didn't do it right," Ravess told her. "And the violin is too big for you."

Moa had a simple solution. "Then get me a smaller one," she said, "And teach me how."

Cyclonis and the Dark Ace blinked.

"Tomorrow," Moa said, arms crossed. "That's an order."

"Oh, she definately gets that from you," the Dark Ace had to say, ignoring the way she nudged him with her elbows to keep him silent so she could hear what Moa was saying. But Moa apparantly had no more to say and made an about face, marching back towards her parents and grabbing her father's hand to lead him away. The Dark Ace complied willingly, allowing himself to be dragged along by Moa.

"Ok," she said, "We can go now."

"Don't you want to hold my hand, Moa?" Ravess could hear Cyclonis saying as their voices grew fainter.

"No. I held your hand yesterday."

"Yeah, Lark. Don't get greedy. It's my turn."

"Well, she could hold both our hands."

Moa considered it in silence. "All right then," she decided gravely, and the rest of the conversation was lost to Ravess as the royal family grew too far to hear.


	18. Chapter 18

**I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack...  
**

**OoOoOo**

There was an explosion of sparks as their weapons clashed against each other. Feeling his pulse jump a bit in actual fear, the Dark Ace had to scramble to avoid having his brains dashed out against the pavement of the landing strip just outside the castle. Around them, the red skies of Cyclonia were alight with sparks of their own, volcanoes erupting and belching flames that never reached the safety of the stronghold. Ever since the last castle had been destroyed in the catastrophe involving the Storm Engine, Cyclonis had relocated to beneath the cloud line, hidden in the Wasteland where no Sky Knight ever dared to penetrate.

"Calm yourself, Lark!" the Dark Ace found himself saying, parrying another blow from his wife's staff. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Calm? Calm?" Lark demanded. "You should be... _less _calm! We're fighting! So fight me like your life depends on it!" With a shout, she let loose a blast from the end of her staff and he rolled to the side, pulling the trigger on his own blade to send a spike of red energy back at her. She deflected it with her spear, running towards him.

Moa watched the proceedings with great interest, sucking on a long straw filled with chilled passion fruit juice. Dunking one finger inside the drink, she fished out one of the thin slices of kiwi that had been added for decorative flavor and popped it in her mouth, fascinated by the sight of her parents dueling like wildcats.

They ran parallel to each other now along the landing strip, watching each other for a sudden move as they made their way to the edge of the Terra itself. "You promised you wouldn't hold back!" Lark accused him.

"If I don't hold back, Cyclonia will be without a ruler."

"Pah!" She stopped to lunge at him again and again he deflected it with the flat of his sword, swiping away the attack and half-heartedly stabbing in when she left herself wide open. She twirled around it, bringing her staff down over his head with no remorse. "That's what we have Moa for."

The last thing she saw was a massive wave of red energy. It caught her around the middle and flung her back with such force she lost her grip on her staff and was sent tumbling over the edge of the Terra, where the landing/takeoff strip for her Talon's Switchblades ended into an expanse of nothing but Wasteland. The Dark Ace got to his feet with the whole world spinning around him, hand still burning from the force of the blast he had sent her way. Moa stood up as well, dropping her drink in alarm. "Mom?!"

The Dark Ace needed no further prompting than that. He tossed his blade aside and hurled himself over the edge of the Terra, ejecting he wings of his battle glider and diving down into the Wastelands, eyes darting to and fro, frantically searching for Lark.

"Uh, hello?"

He found her hovering just above him, tapping his head with her foot. He looked up, startled, to see her floating with the purple aura of a crystal surrounding her. She grinned down at him and began to laugh when he flushed with shame.

"You forgot, didn't you?" she said to him, but he remained stubbornly silent as he guided himself back up to land. "Didn't you?" she demanded, almost with glee. The Dark Ace ripped of his wings and stalked over to where he had dropped his sword, seething with anger. "You did. I can see it."

"How was I supposed to know you had a flight crystal on you?" he finally snapped.

"Because I told you before hand?"

He was silent again and Lark burst into laugher.

"The things I do for love," he sniffed haughtily at his daughter before scooping her up and marching back inside, leaving Lark to cackle by herself at his expense. As far as he was concerned, the sparring match was over.


	19. Chapter 19

Moa made a face at the dish that was placed in front of her mother. "Seafood? Are we all having fish? Yuck, I hate fish! It smells weird!"

"No," Lark said, waving aside the Talon who had served her meal. "Just me. And don't make those faces at the dinner table!" she snapped. Moa made the remarkable transformation from fussy eater to well-mannered princess in a split second, sitting a little straighter and her face the perfect picture of angelic innocence.

"Shall I then assume you've ordered something different for me, Master?" Moa's clipped, precise tone managed to crack a grin on her father's face. "It's most unmannered to eat in the presence of others without at least offering them a portion."

"She gets that from me," The Dark Ace muttered to Cyclonis, nudging her leg with one of his feet.

"What, the dog-like obedience?"

"Hating seafood."

"Master Cyclonis, I do believe I asked you a question," Moa said, raising the volume a bit. It was as close to _"Mooom! I'm talking to you! Hey Mooooom!" _as she would get in her current mood.

"Skirt steak and potatoes," the Dark Ace answered for her. "Don't worry, I'll cut it for you."

Moa allowed herself a broad grin.

"I think she can cut her own meat," Lark said.

"I want the Dark Ace to cut it for me," Moa protested.

"You heard her. Dad has to cut it."

"Fine then." Lark unfolded Moa's napkin and placed it on her lap before doing the same for herself. "What Moa wants, Moa gets."

"Can I have five scoops of ice cream for dessert?"

"That's pushing it," The Dark Ace and Cyclonis said at the same time, just as two other Talons arrived in the private dining hall with matching plates for Moa and the Dark Ace. Moa slid her plate over to her father and he dutifully sliced it up into small bitable portions for her before working on his own.

Ahh, dinner with the family…


	20. Chapter 20

-1It all spurred from the violin lessons. Moa suddenly had something that was neither mother nor father- though the alarming speed with which she took up the instrument was a credit to her mother's unnaturally high intelligence and her devotion to the patterns of the music was definitely inherited from her father, who spent more than half his life perfecting the art of guitar playing.

In the end, Cyclonis came to enjoy listening to her practice in the evenings. The Dark Ace might have tried once or twice to convert her to the ways of guitar rather than violin, but when it became apparent that Moa would have no other stringed instrument than her own he bit the bullet and invested an electric violin. Moa adapted to the new medium at once, and everything seemed fine until Moa began to show the one trait both of her parents shared- the dominant trait, the _dominating _trait, the unhealthy, darker side of her parents:

Obsession.

Moa lay sprawled out on the floor of her room, cheeks flushed with fever. Thick, black liquid seeped into the carpet around her, sinking into her already dark hair and ruining her clothes. It was ink- the same ink that stained her fingertips. It was a credit to how much she had written that there wasn't more of the substance to spill- even though it had been a large bottle of ink, it was half empty when she was finished with it.

That was how her father found her. His mind froze with terror in that moment, because she looked like nothing so much as a murder victim still stewing in their own blood. He knew what that scene looked like, quite intimately, so it was only natural that this was the first thought to enter his mind. But before he could go off into a rampage to find her attacker, he noticed three things:

The blood was the wrong color. It was black. She was still breathing.

He picked her up- she was still small enough to fit inside his arms- and he shook her roughly, to try and wake her from her stupor. His frantic shouts were enough to rouse every Talon from here to Zartacla and when the first unhappy servant stumbled into the room to be of assistance he was met with two furious red eyes.

The three words that came out of his mouth could hardly be described as human speech. They were grating, rough, mad with rage and a fear that had no other outlet but anger.

"_Call the doctor_."

**OoOoOo**

It was when the room was cleared up, Moa declared perfectly healthy (minus a fever), and the princess was safely tucked away in her bed when Cyclonis found the papers. They were stacked on Moa's desk in careful numerical order, and they caught her eye because despite the childish quality to the scrawls on them, they had an undeniable pattern and order. She wandered over, ceased her immobile vigil over the child's bed, and let one pale hand venture from the safety of the core of her body to snatch out the first page. Violet eyes scanned it, and she grabbed the next few pages. When she asked the Dark Ace about it, he recalled that the papers had been strewn all around Moa, so many papers that they almost covered her.

And as his eyes trailed over what Moa had written down, he could replay the scene as it must have happened in his mind:

Moa, taking the quill, dipping it into the ink, and starting her work. Her pace quickened as she felt the symbols dropping straight from her mind onto the blank page, exhilaration- at least, that was how he had felt when he had first attempted what Moa had so obviously mastered. However, knowing Moa's selfish nature, she would never continue doing something she didn't enjoy unless pressed to do so by her parents. Nothing short of religious fervor would have caused her to go on until her wrists began to ache, the ink begin to spill, the papers begin to slip and slide under her hands as she lost herself to completing her task, to the point of utter exhaustion and sickness.

He slowly reorganized the papers on her desk as Cyclonis resumed vigil over the heir to the throne.

It was a symphony.

An entire, six-hour long symphony.


	21. Chapter 21

**Anticipation: A note related to a chord that is played just before the chord itself.**

I… I can't believe it. I wrote a non-humorous piece for Ravess and Snipe AND I ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT! I think I like this chapter the best so far, other than chapter four where Lark is all like "red is the color of his eyes".

To be honest, I think Moa should have a lot more wrong up in her noggin but I'm feeling generous so I'll keep the mind-warps to a minimum. I probably couldn't manage an extremely bizarre piece like that anyway.

**OoOoOo**

The violin wailed, screaming its sinister tune as Ravess played on the balcony to her quarters. She always liked to have an audience, but since right now she didn't crave any human contact she played for the stars in the sky and the clouds that sometimes brushed across the face of the moon, plunging the clear night into shadows. The stars, she found, were often a better audience than humans. They never got tired before her, and when she turned her eyes upon them she felt like the music and she could be one.

She loved music.

The automatic sliding doors to her quarter screeched open just as she was hitting the crescendo. She turned her head to see who it was, and when she saw Master Cyclonis looming in the doorway the music screeched to a halt and Ravess turned fully around to bow low from the waist, her violin over her heart.

"Master?" she greeted with a question, yellow eyes casually searching the background for Moa. The princess often followed her mother like a baby chick, especially if it was a trip to see Instructor Ravess, the only person beside her parents who's rules she followed.

The Master didn't bother with formalities today, instead shoving a huge ream of paper under Ravess's nose. "Read this," she ordered, rather than said. The violinist took the papers, curiosity mingling with trepidation. Anything out of the norm or out of her control were instant fear-creators for her, the perfectionist.

As Ravess shuffled through the papers, recognizing Moa's handwriting at once, she lost her fear in a warm, smug sensation: pride. She had often quarreled with the princess (when her mother was out of earshot) of the importance of learning how to read and write music notes, and here was all her hard work paying off. "This is..." she said, unaware of the grin spreading across her face.

"A symphony for a full orchestra, yes, I gathered as much from the Dark Ace."

Ravess remembered that the Dark Ace was a musician as well... though he played that _ungodly _contraption called the electric guitar, yes, he was a musician. Of sorts. "This is quite a feat," Ravess said, still shuffling papers from the first movement, to the second movement... "When did she do all this?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

Ravess paused from her reading to stare at the Master. Perhaps she hadn't heard her right, or misunderstood her somehow. "But this is more than an afternoon's work, surely?"

"No." The Master pulled her hood up to hide her eyes, so that only her long, thin lips were showing. "She locked herself up in her room and worked, apparently, to the point of making herself sick and collapsing on the floor."

Ravess's hands clenched the papers tightly, her heart beating in alarm. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine. However, I've come to you to ask your opinion on whether or not we should continue the lessons. If she's going to take it this far..."

Alarm bells rang in Ravess's head. This contribution to music, and this girl's obvious calling for the violin, should not be suppressed in any way. But to outright tell the Master "NO!" was a breach in every form of protocol she inflicted upon herself when dealing with the moody Cyclonis. "Well, it might seem there's nothing left to teach her in the way of music, but..."

Cyclonis tilted her head to the side, shadowed face unreadable. "But?"

"But I think etiquette classes may be in order."

"She already takes etiquette classes."

"Yes, yes," Ravess said, with the slightest touch of impatience in her voice as she waved the thought away. "How to dance, how to hold a fork, how to be a princess. But what I have in mind is a little more... rigid. More about self-discipline. How to know her body and what it is capable of."

A new voice entered the discussion, drawling and sarcastic. "There's a word for that. It's called Sex Ed."

Ravess glared coolly at her superior officer as he walked in. The Dark Ace was smiling, but he looked far from amused. "That's not the type of _capability _I was referring to."

"Ah. And here I was thinking you women were capable of nothing else."

After giving the Dark Ace a warning look not to open his mouth again, Cylonis turned back to Ravess. "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know yet. I need to monitor her first, to see what it is that's causing her to harm herself." Ravess took a deep breath before suggesting: "I want one week with her. All other classes are to be canceled so I can see her every day."

Not even her parents could see Moa every day, as the princess grew older. There simply wasn't enough time, with the Dark Ace constantly being called out to handle border skirmishes or crystal projects for the good of the country that required total isolation, keeping Cyclonis locked up in her room for days at a time. _Ravess_, however, had no such responsibilities.

Cyclonis didn't even bat an eyelid. "Done."

**OoOoOo**

**The First Day.**

"So, you wrote a symphony, did you?"

Moa sat on a stool in Ravess's room, not trying to hide how curious she was to see everything it had to offer. She'd only been inside the woman's private quarters once before- the classes generally took place in a vacant room or one of the towers, Ravess teaching Moa how to play for the stars. What especially grabbed Moa's interest about the room, however, was the collection of bows- for the violin and arrow both. She pointed at the weapon, ignoring Ravess's last comment to say, "Hey, could you teach me how to do that, too?"

"Maybe, if the Dark Ace and Master Cyclonis want you learning how to use weapons."

"Dad says he's like to see me with his sword one day, but I don't think he really means it. Mother thinks I'd be good with a bow and knife." She looked again, pointedly, at Ravess's weapons.

Ravess wanted to get right to the point of the symphony once more, so she pulled out a piece of paper and writing materials. "Show me a little of what you did the other day. Consider it a test- make me something new and…" she pondered. "…pretty."

Moa paused with the quill just above the paper, looking up at Ravess. "New and pretty?" she asked uncertainly. "I don't know if I can do that."

"Well, you certainly did it yesterday," Ravess pointed out. "Why don't you just give it a shot- do exactly what you did yesterday."

Eager to show off now that there wasn't the word "test" involved, Moa dipped her quill into the ink once more and started, talking as she worked. "I start with a single note," she told Ravess, delicately penning in the symbols one by one. "The note has other chords that work well with it- certain scales that go together, meld together. I write the chords that comes afterwards, and sometimes I have a certain thing I wanna work towards- like a goal, at the end of the race- only I don't know how to get there, exactly, so I just start…" she stopped for a moment, quill tip hesitating over a new mark, red eyes focused on the paper as though shocked at what she saw. "…_Walking_. But walking down a hill." Ravess felt like she understood what Moa was trying to get at, and what the princess said next only confirmed it. "And when you start walking down a hill sometimes you can't stop because you're going too fast and you'll fall."

Even as she spoke, the paper grew crowded with notes, and Moa was already reaching for a new page, but Ravess grabbed her wrist and stopped her. Moa looked up at her instructor with curious red eyes, fingers still grasping for a new page. "Let me go," Moa ordered.

Ravess held neither pity nor fear for the princess. "Not if you're going to be a fool and hurt yourself," she said, not skipping a beat.

Red eyes blazed. "My mother will-"

The violinist took a gamble. "Your mother gave me total freedom to do whatever I feel necessary with you. If that means breaking a stick over your head, I'll do it, and she won't say a word," Ravess lied. She shoved Moa's hand back, letting her go. But ultimately, it was not Ravess's actions or her lie that made Moa sit up and pay attention, but a new voice from the doorway.

It was Snipe, a sneer evident on his face. He swaggered into the room, mace-holding hand swinging loosely at his side as he spoke down at the princess with disdain. "Grow a spine or shut up. You can't expect to hide behind Cyclonis's skirts every time someone says something you don't like, Your Most Royal Heinieness."

Moa held her bruising wrist up to her chest with her other hand, carefully studying Ravess and the woman's brother with the same blank, calculating mind that made her mother the youngest Cyclonis in history. Coming to a decision at last, Moa set the pen down and place both her hands on her lap, waiting for Ravess to continue the lesson.

He might have called Princess Moa "heinieness", but for once, Ravess was glad her brother had such a brutish philosophy.

**OoOoOo**

**The Second Day**.

"You're running," Ravess said, warning in her voice. "Stop running." Moa ignored her, hunched over the paper. The violinist's perfectly groomed eyebrow twitched in annoyance- after all, this was _the_ perfectionist soldier. The one who had scores of Talons under her service, scores of Talons that leaped five feet in the air when she said "jump," who would bend down and lick her stylish stiletto heels if she said "grovel", who _pissed their fucking pants _if she so much as _hinted_ that she would say, "I am very upset."

"I said stop running!" Ravess snapped, her fragile patience worn thin with the belligerent princess. She took her violin bow and rapped the girl's hand once, but sharply enough for her to drop the quill. Moa sulked, giving the woman her best impression of the Dark Ace's Evil Eye. It didn't work half as well as when he did it, so Ravess coolly met the girl's glare with an unassuming face of her own, quickly reverting back to the role of patient mentor.

"You were running," she said, simple as that. "Learn some self control."

"And get me a sandwich!" Snipe yelled from his side of the room, where he was glued to the TV.

Ravess tossed her bow at him. "Go get one yourself, you odoriferous excuse for a human being!"

**OoOoOo**

**The Third Day.**

"How is she progressing?"

The mother and the teacher stood outside the room, talking.

Ravess allowed herself a small, thin, humorless smile. The grim smile of a woman victorious in a bloody battle. What she wanted to say was that she now saw Moa as one more soldier that needed to be disciplined, one more girl who would become a young woman who would become either a disgrace or an example to the gender- a sniveling, whiny, selfish little brat or a she-wolf ready to pounce.

"She's progressing," was all she could actually say.

**OoOoOo**

**The Fourth Day.**

Ravess felt something odd inside herself when she pulled the bow from behind her back and handed it to her pupil. Moa handled the bow with care; it was an entirely different bow than the one she was used to. Where her first bow had the possibility of endless creation, this one was undeniably grim in it's capability to take everything away with one choice arrow. The ends of the staff were ornate, carved to look like snarling wolf heads. Moa ran her fingers over their teeth in admiration.

"What do you say we take a break from music?" Ravess managed to suggest, even though the feeling grew stronger as she saw the girl take the empty bow and point it out the window, already assuming the proper stance- feet spread with her left foot pointing forward and her back foot sideways, almost making a T shape with them. Her back was straight, angular face emotionless.

And when that emotionless façade broke and her lips peeled back in a vicious, eager grin, Ravess knew what she was feeling was great pride, and greater anticipation.

**OoOoOo**

**The Fifth Day.**

Moa bent over her work, scrambling like mad to drop the notes onto the paper as quick as they appeared in her mind, fearful that she would lose the magic, the rush, the high of creation, the overflow of spontaneous emotion. Ravess nodded to Snipe and he ripped the paper from her hands when it became apparent the girl was reaching a frenzy and would not stop of her own free will; Moa let out a wordless cry, feeling the notes continue to drop only to fall in midair and scatter along the winds, out the tower window, into the Wastelands.

She let the feelings explode from where they were kept bottled up, slamming both of her fists against Snipe's chest and not even wincing when they hit the solid metal of his chest plate. "Why did you _do_ that?" she almost sobbed, handling her unexpected and inexplicable anguish the way her parents did- by channeling it into fury, anger, rage, and subsequent violence. "I was doing well! I don't see what's wrong about it, so what if I faint afterwards? That's just the price I have to pay- for the music… for the music!"

Snipe and Ravess shared an identical, alarmed glance as the princess slid to the floor after her outburst.

"Christ, this kid is-" Snipe began, his grip around the Princess's wrist the only thing keeping her upright. The rest of her was sort of slumped over, already half way through a fainting spell.

"Snipe. Whatever you're about to say is most likely vulgar, so just stop now."

Snipe clenched his jaw shut, glaring at his sister. "She's messed up, is all I was gonna say."

Ravess clucked her tongue, shaking her head though inwardly she had to agree. Moa was beginning to quicken now, pulling herself upright and shaking her head as if to clear it. As the princess was slumped over, Ravess couldn't see her face and couldn't see if the girl even remembered her little outburst. The violinist sighed, one hand on her hip as she studied the girl from head to toe- her angular, bony elbows and knees, ragged black hair, strong, square face and soft, round eyes.

"Well," Ravess said at last, "She is _their_ daughter, after all."

**OoOoOo**

**The Sixth Day.**

Taking the music sheet in one hand, she waved it in front of Moa's face. "Your work is sloppy, everything about it is sloppy when you work that fast." She wasn't sure if Moa was listening, but she continued anyway. "You can write an entire symphony in one day, but if it's a shoddy symphony, who cares?"

Moa's blood red eyes glowed from under a thick veil of black hair, somber in her attention to her teacher yet still quivering with the effort of suppressing her need to fight being bossed around. It appeared she was listening now, if she wasn't before, and she didn't like what she was hearing.

"Now," Ravess said, voice audibly going softer, "If you write but a little every day, you can analyze it, dissect it, put it back together so it fits better, and then polish it. Your spontaneous music-making is nice enough, but to take the time to create a _real_ gem is infinitely more lucrative than to punch through the earth and hope to emerge with a diamond in your fist…"

**OoOoOo**

**The Seventh Day.**

This was the final test.

Ravess took an hourglass, one set for fifteen minutes. She very purposefully let it clack when she flipped it over, starting the time limit. Moa anxiously stared at her page for a moment before beginning, keeping a steady pace the entire time rather than gaining speed as she went ahead. Glancing up every so often at the remaining time, Moa stopped when there was still only one minute left to drain down the hourglass. She said nothing, her blankly expectant eyes trained on Ravess.

"You still have time left," Ravess reminded her. "Are you done already?"

"I'm done for today," Moa said decisively, daring Ravess to contradict her. "I won't write another note until tomorrow." She took the hourglass and purposefully put it on its side, so that sand neither went up nor down, and waited for Ravess to speak.

The archer's yellow eyes studied the girl carefully, thinking. Then a smile cracked her face, and she pulled Moa closer to her. Brushing aside the girl's wild black hair, she kissed the princess on her right cheek and then her forehead. "Bleh!" Moa said, wiping away at the lipstick with her sleeve. "What was that for?" she demanded.

"To show you I care."

"That's ridiculous. You're my servant; I am your master."

"Not yet you're not," Ravess reminded her, pinching her nose between the first knuckles of her index and middle finger.

"Dah!" Moa whined, wriggling yet unwilling to actually shove aside the woman. "Det go ub be!"

"I'm just knocking any grand ideas out of your head before they get dangerous," Ravess said, shaking the girl's head. "Let's go to the practice field. Once our head is nice and empty of music we can come back and play what you wrote today and see if it doesn't need any editing."

Moa rubbed at her nose, but for once there was no belligerence in her eyes. "OK," she said. "Whatever."

Ravess's eyebrow twitched. She _hated_ that word. "You're just like your father, you know that? Just as rude."

"And my mother?"

"Just as demanding."

Moa snorted to let Ravess know what she thought of the woman's opinions. "Let's just go punch some holes in a dummy or something."

**OoOoOo**

**Two Months Later.**

"I'm glad everything worked out with you and Moa," Cyclonis said, her hand stretching out like a tendril of shadow from the dark core of her being, wrapped up in that clinging, shifting cloak of hers. In her palm was a pouch full of money- a reward. Two months had passed and Moa seemed to have stabilized, no longer going on musical rampages. Cyclonis deemed her back under control again. "But don't get relaxed just yet," the Master told her servant.

Unusual for the somber master, she started to grin.

"Chances are you're likely to need to start all over again... very, very soon."

Two weeks later, she declared herself officially pregnant for the second time.


	22. Chapter 22

"Hey, you."

The Dark Ace blinked, stopping mid-march as he passed the room to his old quarters. It had been years since he last slept alone at night, and for just as many years that room had been abandoned. He had been on his way to the training ground, but the voice of his Master had quite effectively slapped him free of any thoughts of battle he might have had.

"Master?" he inquired, puzzlement on his face. "What are you... what are you doing in my old room?"

"Mm. I dunno." Cyclonis rested against the door frame, shrugging loosely. But despite the casual nature of her voice and her posture, she looked up at him from behind a thick fringe of black hair, her purple eyes smoldering. "Why don't you come in here and..." She reached forward with one hand, trailing it gently over his chest. "...find out?"

He did not need to be told twice.

**OoOoOo**

"Here- it's like this, Moa."

He stood behind his seven year old daughter, who was already almost as tall as her mother. Gripping her wrists and moving her so that she stood in the proper battle stance, he didn't realize that they had an audience. "Now, when you're fighting against a bigger opponent, don't be afraid to fight dirty. In fact, that goes for any opponent. Fight _filthy_. Go for the privates, the stomach, the legs- go nuts. Use tricks. And use those crystal skills I know you inherited from your crazy mother."

"Ah-hem."

The Dark Ace didn't even have the decency to look guilty, instead turning around and grinning at his wife. "What? It's true. You're insane."

"And it's hereditary," Moa added, looking pleased.

He ruffled her hair. "That's my girl."

**OoOoOo**

She walked through the hallways, a manila envelope in her hands and reading as she walked, every so often shuffling to a new paper in her report. She'd take dinner to go, she decided, and work all afternoon on this project formulating in her mind. Certainly if the matrix to a-

She bumped into the Dark Ace, her forehead smacking against his chest armor. "Ah!" she said, startled as she dropped all of her reports to clutch at her forehead. "Watch where you're going!" she snapped up at him, glowering.

He held his hands behind his back and leaned forward, grinning in the face of her wrath.

"And what's so funny?" she demanded when she saw she wasn't getting a proper reaction out of him.

"My turn!" was his simple answer, and before she could react he scooped her up into his arms and charged down the hallway to their shared quarters, completely ruining her plans for the rest of the afternoon.

**OoOoOo**

Afterwards, he was standing by the balcony doors, looking out at the cloudy, blood red skies of Cyclonia with his own red eyes heavy-lidded with satisfaction and weariness. The setting sun could sometimes be seen through the clouds, forming tiger stripes on his bare chest. The rustle of papers made him smirk and he looked over at Cyclonis from the corner of his eyes to see her lying on her belly on the mattress, chin propped up in one palm as she dug out an old report to pore over.

"Must you?" he asked.

"I must," she responded, voice somewhat distant.

**OoOoOo**

"A boy? A girl?"

Moa bounced around them, dying to see what the image would show her.

"A brother? A sister?"

"A brother," Lark said, finally tearing her eyes from the picture of her son and handing it over to her firstborn.

"_A BROTHER_!" Moa shrieked, ripping the papers from her mother's hands and dancing around with the sheets pressed close to her chest. "Oh Infinity Stone! A little brother! This is going to be amazing! I bet I could kick his butt at Sky Fu!"

The Dark Ace smiled thinly. "At this point, I'm sure you could."

Moa decided to let that slide, instead continuing her gush of excited emotions. "Oh God, I can't wait to see him already!" A sudden thought sobers her and her eyes go wide, every motion stopping as she looked up at her parents. "Can I.. Can we name him Eustace?"

A stunned silence.

"Er... what about... Habel?" She suggested at the obviously bad reaction this had garnered. "You're always saying you're bad with names," she accused her mother, and then to her father: "And you already got to name me, so..."

"Habel's fine," The Dark Ace said.

"Habel's more than fine," Lark said.

And he was, in fact, more than fine.


	23. Chapter 23

**"There is no room for love in this damnable world my father thrust me into. Only… obedience."**

**OoOoOo**

A storm was brewing in Cyclonia- but not the normal kind. Thirteen year old Moa, heir apparent and budding young princess, stood with her back resting against the door to her parents' chamber, listening intently to their conversation. Her younger brother Habel- younger by seven years- squatted next to her, and she absent-mindedly stroked his head of thick black hair.

"I thought we agreed on this when Moa was born." That would be the Dark Ace, pacing restlessly from one end of the room to the other. "The firstborn would be Cyclonis, and if there was ever a second one they would be the Dark Ace. We _agreed_, Lark."

The voice of Master Cyclonis was considerably more relaxed than that of their father's. "Well, I've changed my mind."

There was a _slam_ of something heavy hitting something else. "You can't just _change your mind_!" he shouted at her, and Moa flinched. "Training to become the Dark Ace starts at five years old! Moa's too old! Moa's been told her whole _life_ that she would take your place, you can't simply change that!"

"What are they-?" Habel started in a hushed, confused whisper, but Moa crouched down next to him and put a hand over his mouth, her red eyes focused on the solid door between them and the ruling couple of Cyclonia and her mouth a thin, dark line.

There was a _scrrrrrape_ of chair legs against the floor. Since the Dark Ace was already standing, Moa assumed that her mother was now getting to her feet as well. "Habel has shown traits that have always led to the selection of the next Cyclonis. I wasn't the only candidate for Cyclonis, you know. I have several cousins-"

"Well why didn't you tell me about these traits sooner?" the Dark Ace demanded. "Why didn't you tell me it was likely Moa wasn't the next Cyclonis?"

Somehow, Habel had shifted his mouth free of Moa's grasp. "Are they trying to switch us around?" he asked Moa, painfully loud to her ears.

"Habel, _quiet_," she hissed at him.

"He has one purple eye," the Dark Ace said, frustration evident. "One. And simply because of the color of the pigments in his _eye_, that automatically makes him the next Cyclonis?"

"It makes him more likely to be the next Cyclonis. It's how it's always been done."

"Yeah, well we haven't exactly been perfect models of what should be done, _have we _Lark?"

_Snap_. _Snap, snap_. Listening to them was like watching a man throw kindle on embers, the flames slowly licking higher and higher and you're stuck in the same place, unable to run away from the encroaching heat. _Pop_. The wood crumbled and crackled under the force of it, and Moa held Habel with her arms wound tightly around his thin shoulders.

"He wasn't even born with that eye purple!" the Dark Ace continues.

"Neither was I. They changed color over the years, and I became prime candidate for Cyclonis, especially when you consider that my father was the previous one."

"So _what_?"

"_So everything_!" It was the first time during the whole exchange that she raised her voice at all. And in the wake of that thunderclap the silence sounded so loud. "It's only through sacrifice that I have a son at all! You will not change my mind on this matter, Dark Ace, so it's a waste of your time to even try!"

_Crash._

And more silence.

The Dark Ace spoke softly.

"…Is he… even mine?"

Chill, frigid air, but no answer. Moa looked down into the mismatched eyes of her younger brother and saw the answer in them instead.

Purple and electric blue, the complete opposite of hers.

_Crash_.

The doors slid open and the siblings tumbled apart in their haste to get away, but it was too late. The Dark Ace grabbed both of them by their collars and pulled them together, glaring at both of them. "Aren't you a little short to be in the espionage unit?" he asked them.

"We- we- we-" Habel blabbered.

"I was only just-" Moa started.

He dropped them, Moa falling in a heap of bony angles and Habel rolling a few feet away. Then he marched down the hallways without another word, the angry rhythm of the slap of his boots against the floor speaking loud enough. They both turned around to see Cyclonis leaning against the open doorway, eyeing them critically. "You should be in bed," she said simply, no emotion inflecting upon her voice.

"Kinda hard to sleep with all the noise the Dark Ace was making," Moa shot back. "Half the stronghold is going nuts, knowing you two were fighting over something." She dusted herself off, getting to her feet before crossing her arms and looking down at her petite mother. "So, am I the Ace-In-Waiting or am I the heir apparent or what?"

Cyclonis managed to smile thinly, humorlessly. "What do you want to be, Moa?"

"I don't care," she said, voice savage. Then she bumped her hip sideways to knock Habel a few feet to the left. "But Habel's got soft hands, he'd be a good Cyclonis," she said, effectively insulting both her mother and brother in one clean sentence. Then she turned around and stalked down the same path of the Dark Ace, though she made considerable less noise with hot pink socks rather than war boots.

Cyclonis sighed. And then she noticed the Habel was still there, looking up at her. "Mom?" he said.

"Habel?"

"I… I don't understand," he said.

Her nails trailed gently over his scalp. "Perhaps that's for the best," she told him, and then she led him back to his room, and tucked him in, and kissed him good night, and left.

**OoOoOo**

**The Next Day.**

"I was never unfaithful to him, Moa."

Moa sat in the hangar with her arms around her knees, red eyes glaring at the rows of empty switchblades, and among those riderless switchblades was a single empty space, devoid of both man and machine. "Oh yeah," she said, "Of course. The stork just came and dropped Habel off in a basket, did he?"

A soft, sharp exhale of air through her nose. "I really hate it when children reach your age. It's like they suddenly realize their capacity for sarcasm and use it in excess to make up for the years lost."

"Don't patronize me."

The answer was much sharper. "Apologize for mouthing off to me and maybe I'll consider it."

Moa simply stared at the empty space, as though willing her father to return. But the switchblade and the rider remained gone. "Who's Habel's father?"

"No one. Well, no one important," she corrected herself. "I impregnated myself." A blank pause. "Artificially," she added, before delicately trying to explain the rest of it to Moa. "Your father, he, ah… Well, it would seem he couldn't give me another heir. So I made one myself."

"You…" Moa half turned around, red eyes wide, mouth partly opened in horror. "Well why didn't you just tell him that?!"

"Because I was angry with him."

"Then get a communicator and tell him now! Don't you understand?" Moa surged up to her feet and whirled around, grabbing her mother by the front of her purple, regal cloak and shaking her. "He left!" the princess shouted. "He left and he might not come back because of _you_!"

Unfortunately, Moa was to then learn how hard the calluses on her mother's hands truly were. Cyclonis's left hand reached up between Moa's outstretched arms, sweeping aside one arm and then grabbing it, pulling her daughter forward while kicking out with one leg and bringing her down to the floor, where she crouched over Moa and kept her subdued in an intricate Sky Fu hold.

"What I do, I do for Cyclonia," Cyclonis said, "I let him leave because he infuriates me. Because he doesn't understand. We love each other and because of that he feels the right to question me and that can't happen because he is the Dark Ace and I am Cyclonis." Her black nails tightened over Moa's arms, digging into the flesh just hard enough to leave an imprint. "He'll be back soon enough. Your training will start as Ace-In-Waiting. And Habel will be Cyclonis. Do you have a problem with this?"

It would have been better if she were shouting, enraged, maddened, a wild beast that Moa could hate. But it wasn't. It was her mother, speaking into her ear and telling her the truth of the matter in a calm, detached matter.

And the truth reeked.

Moa lowered her head, and then shook it. "No," she said.

"Learn from this," Cyclonis said, and let her daughter go.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N:** I think I'm going to stop writing within the "Moa" storyline. From now on assume all the following chapters are unrelated to each other.

**OoOoOo**

The road home was strangely unfamiliar to him now.

Where was the rapture of an endless blue sky?

Where was the blanket of security that descended whenever he screeched to a halt on the landing strip?

_(She took it from me.)_

The _Condor _was not where his heart was, not anymore.

"Ace?"

"Griffin."

"I just want you to know-"

_(She took it from me.)_

"-I trust you."

From the first to the most recent, all of them had so much hope in their eyes before he crushed it under the heel of his war boots.

_(Does that make her my home, now?)_

I walk through the automatic doors not for the first time and maybe for the last- because every day I could die. Everybody dies, and I am no exception. But every time-

_(She turns to smile at me, flesh without pigment, eyes without compassion.)_

-Every time feels like the first time, as they say.

"Dark Ace?"

"Master."

_(Here to take the rest of me?)_

She rests the flat of her hand on my chest, and like a pebble in a still lake, the simple touch sends ripples from the point of impact to spread through my whole body. I grab her wrist and pull her closer, her chest against mine, her other arm already around my waist, robe and cape discarded as her lips stroke the sensitive skin on my neck.

_(Not yet.)_

She pulls her gloves back on, a snake shedding its skin in eerie reverse. The bristling spikes that adorn the back of her neck form a barrier between me and her.

_(I still want to play with you a little more.)_


	25. Chapter 25

Grocery shopping for four rapidly growing teenaged boys and their pet weasel is not a task for the faint of heart, let me tell you that. I generally have Junko come with me to help lug all the junk around, and since he's such a sweetheart he gets the privilege of actually being there when I pick out the food. Like, I mean, if Junko wants rainbow sprinkled cookies and Finn wants the peanut butter chunks, I'm more inclined to go Junko's way. You get me?

But today wasn't a major we-need-to-refill-the-empty-fridge mission. It was just I noticed we were low on a few things and I thought it might be a good idea to stock up in increments rather than our usual monthly shopping spree. Well, a few things turned into a few more than a few things, and balancing three paper bags (one of which the bottom was disintegrating from the sweat of a carton of juice) is not an easy task, even for me.

An orange spilled and went rolling. That's what did it. It had to be an orange. If it had been any other fruit I would have said, "Screw it, I'm not getting that, it's ruined anyway."

But, you know, who eats orange peels? They're dirty anyway. I didn't like wasting money on fruit that went rolling in sadistic glee down the fregging sidewalk. I chased it, like the fool I am. And it rolled right up to a pair of booted feet. Someone's booted feet.

And someone

picked it

up.

So now here I am, clenching three paper bags close to my chest with my teeth pressed so tight against each other I can feel the headache forming. And Master Cyclonis takes my orange and brushes the dirt off of it and holds it out to me, face unreadable, thoughts unknowable.

"Hi," she says, wrapping the orange in a white handkerchief and tossing it at me. I shift so that it lands in the gaping mouth of one of the bags, never taking my eyes off of her.

And then she says:

"Truce?"

**OoOoOo**

Lark and Cyclonis.

Friend and Enemy.

Which is her true name? Her true nature? The empress- or the girl?

_(I just can't wrap my head around the idea of her being both.)_

"Truce," I repeat dumbly.

She sets down her mug of hot chocolate and smiles thinly at me, that lying-snaky smile that she probably practices in the mirror. "Kind of weird, isn't it?" she says to me. She rolls her shoulders and closes her eyes in a carefree gesture, and I can't help but flinch, waiting for her to attack me, waiting for the Dark Ace to burst in with a squadron of Talons ready to kidnap me, ready for the ice cream to rot inside the brown paper bags that rest on the cafe table. She leans forward, hands forming a steeple, and I keep my hands on my lap and flinch again. "I want you to help me," she says. "You're probably the only one sneaky enough who can."

"Sneak-" I start, but then I see her reach inside her jacket pocket and I surge to my feet, fumbling for a crystal knife.

She pulls out a white envelope. Waves it at me with a dry smile.

I sit back down, feeling foolish.

"In this letter is a course of actions that 'you'" she makes finger quotations. "Came up with in order to start negotiations for a peace treaty between Atmosia and Cyclonia." For the first time, I think I see an actual, unplanned emotion cross her face as she adds, "I can't suggest it for images sake. For me to ask for peace would be a sign of weakness."

That has me a little riled up. "Oh, and it wouldn't be if Atmosia was the one asking? We have our pride too."

"Yes," she says, patiently, "But you're nothing but a soldier and I'm the leader of the entire empire."

Ouch.

"I'm asking _you _to do this because you'd lose nothing. I'd lose face. I'm asking you to bitch slap the Sky Council a little and let them see that this war is ruining both of us." Bored now, she crosses her legs at the knee and starts bobbing one foot, glancing off down the street. "They wouldn't think twice, after they see this nice reasonable argument that 'you' thought up all on your lonesome. Who'da thunk Piper of the Storm Hawks was so politically savvy?"

She laughs.

"Nah, they wouldn't mind looking weak. They're as eager to end this war as I am, but I as the aggressor must not-"

"Why do I have to do anything you say?"

She stops.

"She", stops.

_("She" because I don't know what her name is.)_

Because I don't know how to react to this.

Because the first time I met her she saved my life and told me I was just like her, (-I'm not, I'm _not _like you, I'll _never _be like you, I'll never join _you_-) the second time I saw her she tried to kill me. She tried to traumatize me, rip my friends apart limb by limb and make me watch it all.

Because she was my friend and then she used me.

I don't even know if Lark isn't just some pseudonym she made up one day.

_(This is a trick this is a trick this is a trick this is a trick this is a trick this is a trick)_

"All I have to do is shout and the guards'll come running."

"Yes," she admits. "And then I would have to kill them all, and then kill you. And that's not what I want."

"Well someone is confident," I snip. "If you really wanted peace, you'd stop threatening me."

"If you _want _peace, do as I say."

We glare at each other, sparks igniting and catching on the tinder.

And then I can't help myself. I look away, wrapping my arms around myself, and I whisper, "...Why?"

"Why... what?"

"Why.. everything? Why come here? To me? I thought you wanted to..."

"...Take control of Atmos? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. However-" She reaches forward faster than I can see and grabs my right hand by the wrist, yanking me forward and pressing my palm underneath the heavy folds of her jacket.

And I feel...

I feel....

I feel life.

(Pulsing.)

My eyes go buggy. "You... you're... But you're... I mean, we're... we're the same age!"

Sixteen.

Jesus Christ Almighty on a Pogo Stick, she's pregnant.

Her dry voice snaps me back to reality. "However, I'm a little... preoccupied with other thingsat the moment."

"Who-what- why- _what_??" I can't help but blurt out.

"That, is an incredibly personal question that I don't feel the need to answer right now." She lets me go and I take a few steps back, still mildly disturbed, still frightened this is all a trick, still confused as hell. "All you need to know, Piper is...children..."

(Purple eyes completely unveiled, vulnerable and pleading.)

"...Children shouldn't have to fight wars."

She leaves, and the white envelope sits on the table top, waiting for me to pick it up.

**OoOoOo**

**A/N:** A brief return to the Moa universe! Before Moa was born! And a complete lack of DA! YAY!


	26. Chapter 26

It's not often he sees her sleeping. It strikes something deep within him, almost paternal.

_You're young enough to be my daughter._

But strong enough to crush him with her pinky finger. All the maturity of a woman twice her age, with the limited experience of a fifteen year old girl, with the raw power of a freak of nature, a product of generations of Cyclonian nobility inbreeding to create this:

The girl, exhausted from days of nonstop work, who had fallen asleep on the seat of the throne that was too big for her.

And through some sick twist of couincidences and whispered orders, the man who was loyal to Cyclonia above all else had somehow become the heiress's lover.

He counted the number of years between them.

More than the digits on his hands.

Too much, by simple arithmetic.

He picked her up, light as a doll, and carried her to her private chambers, tucked her in, smoothed her hair back, promised his love and loyalty to her forever, and left.

And a pair of violet eyes opened, and solemnly contemplated the darkness of her empty room.

_Good Night._


	27. Chapter 27

Maybe it wasn't the most intimidating of facts, but Lark loved chocolate. She could barely contain herself when the Dark Ace arrived with the parcel she had ordered- a chocolate cake from one of the finest shops of delicacies in all the Atmos. The Colonel had recommended it to her, the last time they had met for brunch, and she had been dying to try it ever since.

And when the Dark Ace set the box down and opened up the ribboned, pink container that the cake lay nestled in, she could have sworn she heard a chorus of angels pick up their trumpets and begin to sing.

"Looks good," was all the Dark Ace had to say.

"Looks good? Looks good? This just might be the most beautiful cake ever to grace Atmos."

"You gonna put it on display or are you going to eat it?"

"I'm going to eat it, of course. You're going to help me."

She produced two forks from the folds of her sleeves, grinning at him.

"What, cake?"

"I want cake!"

Two shapes bumped into them, two pairs of eyes pleading with them from behind innocent smiles, arms wrapped around their parent's legs. The Dark Ace and Moa looked at each other in amusement, and with a flick of her hand there were suddenly four forks.

"The things I do for love..." she said as some of the most expensive cake in Atmos got smeared across her son's face.


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: **The names are mostly the same, but this has nothing to do with The Limit.

Written at midnight while high on chocolate and skittles.

I did not edit.

**OoOoOo**

I suppose I should have been surprised to see her waiting for me in my room, but I wasn't. Not anymore. Perhaps never again. Carefully avoiding her eyes, I trudge into my room and sit down on the edge of my bunk, unlacing my boots and kicking them off before staring into space, waiting for her to leave, or to speak. When she does neither I get up and I busy myself with nightly rituals- taking a shower, brushing my teeth, writing in a journal log that Griffin forced me to keep, a few pages from a book I was reading, finally pulling out my guitar to strum mindlessly when it became obvious she wasn't leaving and I wasn't going to sleep.

There's a pressure of someone sitting next to me making the mattress sink, and her voice.

"Have you decided, Ace?"

I don't say anything, find myself re-tuning the strings and playing a different song altogether.

Her little hand grabs me under my chin, gently turns my head so that I'm forced to look at her eyes.

The girl with the purple eyes commands my attention completely.

"Have you _decided_... Ace?" she asks again, more forceful and yet so much softer than anything I'd seen in my short stay on this earth.

I want to give in to her. Completely. Everything about this, about what I feel inside, the answers she's given me, the stories she's told me, yes, yes, _YES!_, but my life with Griffin gave me the power to move my tongue and make my selfish voice whisper in a hoarse, cracked, trembling tone: "What's in it for me, kid?"

She kisses me like an infant, or a lover: on the lips. It moves me not.

"I'll give you his sword," she says, with no small amount of amusement in her child's voice. "And maybe I'll even let you use it every once in a while."

I wrench away from her, stand up and storm towards the other side of the room because I can't leave, not completely, not yet. I face the wall like a kid in time out, breathing hard, trying to see past the red haze that threatens my vision. "Don't screw with me!" I say when she gets up, gets too close. I feel her hand on mine and I turn only to shove her back. "I said leave me alone! Don't you dare even try to come back here again! I'll kill myself before I kill Griffin, you hear me?!"

But before I can scream any further at her, something- something _pulls_. Something deep in my chest. Helpless, I clutch my heart and fall to my knees, wheezing like an old man and not the healthy, strapping, red-blooded young man that I am. My head bowed, all I can see through the grainy texture of the world is her bare feet, the hem of her black dress, the face of the doll she carries with her wherever she goes.

"Kneel, Dark Ace."

Weight falls on me as I try to stand up.

"Stay, Dark Ace."

Tears roll down my face.

"_Obey_, Dark Ace."

"My name is Im-"

"Shut up."

A small hand across my cheeks, sharper than it had any right to be.

And the knowledge that everything she says... _everything she says is true._

**OoOoOo**

**Two Years Previously.**

The _Condor _landed, and it created quite a buzz among the squadrons who had already assemblied for the yearly knightmoot. Terra Rex was hosting this year, the coliseum being a prime place to house so many young hopefuls ready to win the tournament this year.

Griffin, captain and Sky Knight, clapped his young co-pilot on the shoulder and shook him with a grin, looking out of the great front glass window at the spectators. "Excited?" he asked.

Immer shook his head.

"Ah, well, what did I expect- for you to suddenly grow emotions?" laughing softly and completely without humor, he clapped the boy on his back again and got his ride ready. Immer followed. "Come on, kiddo. I know something that'll get that cold heart pumping- all the girls!" They reached the hangar and Griffin spoke even as he snapped up the hood of his engine and checked and double-checked it for perfection. He lost himself inside the grease and gears, his tinny voice still floating around. "At your age I was crazy about the girls. Still am, actually. But anyway! Don't tell me the thought of fighting in front of all those people doesn't just get you nuts, Immer!"

The boy made a face that was half grudging and half confused, crossing his arms and letting his eyes fall to a corner of the room. "It doesn't, really," he murmured, sounding perplexed. "Should it?"

"Hell yes it should!" CLANG! Griffin slammed the hood down. "Once you're there you'll understand. Now come on, our adoring fans are waiting!"

"You're filthy."

"That's what she said."

"I mean you're covered in engine gre-"

"It's a joke, Immer. And I'm doin' this on purpose just to get Harrier's panties in a wad. God, it's great shaking his hand when he expects it to be freaking _manicured_."

Griffin continued to talk, and Immer was mainly silent. That's how it worked between them, really. No one talked much to Immer except Griffin, and he liked it that way. Sitting behind the man, arms wrapped around his waist and pressed close to his warm body, Immer felt he wouldn't have it any other way.

**OoOoOo**

"That your squire?"

"Ayep." Griffin grinned at the Tritonn, who was giving Immer the once-over as the boy enlisted himself in the tournament.

The fish man had one thing to say. "Scrawny."

Griffin had an answer to that. "And scary."

Interrogative. "Scary?"

"Intense."

"How so?"

"You'll see."

**OoOoOo**

The competition lasted practically half the day- from seven oclock in the morning till two in the afternoon. And that was just the Squires. Dozens and dozens of squires, facing off in a complex system designed by the Glockenchimers- fake weapons and intricate body suits that registered the force of the blow and the damage it might actually cause based on strength and location of the hit.

One by one, it became obvious there were three contestants that were above and beyond the rest: The first one was a jokester named Max, who somehow found a way to turn every battle's opponent into a laughingstock be it by breaking his weapon or severely wedgie-ing him. The second one was a wild card, a girl no less, a girl from the Inteceptors named Calla.

And then there was Immer, the dark horse.

Immer who never even broke out into a sweat.

Immer who was ruthless, fast, powerful, brutal, animalistic.

A mindless automaton.

No one rooted for him, too deeply disturbed by something inside them that had no voice and could not scream.

Griffin pretended not to notice, and pretended he couldn't see that the only one who cheered for the silent, strange boy was himself.

The match ended in a melee between the three titans, Max cracking a joke and Calla saying something wickedly fiendish and biting in return and of course Immer closed his eyes and blocked out the world until the whistle blew and he flew into action. The other two did what instinct told them to- gang up on the outsider, the affront to their senses, _the different one._

They knew it. They all knew it. Everyone knew it, back then, that day, the day he changed, the day he woke up.

_Griffin, you are blind to the very end_.

Immer used a greatsword- not _the _greatsword, not Griffin's but a substitue that works with these technological suits they were all wearing. The length of it was enough so that he raised it over his head and simultaneously blocked both downswung blows, skidded back a few feet from the force of the attack, and then _pushed_. The two went flying backwards and back flipped as one, landing in perfect three-point stances. It's hard to create waves of energy from a blade- it's an art that a sky knight perfects, and shouldn't be relied on in tight situations.

But Immer does just that. Pew, pew, two blue shots aim for the two squires; they jump out of the way and charge at him again. Then it's really a melee, two against one. She stabbed and he twisted out of the way to raise his sword and parry Max's attack and lifted one foot to kick him back before leaping and flipping over the girl so that he was behind her and he thrusted forward, a perfect horizontal strike. She rolled to the side and Max was up on his feet again, fitting the length of his blade perfectly between the two long prongs that made up Immer's greatsword. They shook and trembled, body to body, and Immer's strength showed as he forced Max to his knees, broke the lock and swung around to 'decapitate' him.

Thankfully the neck armor was such that all Max got from that encounter was a bruise along his neck and shoulders that was larger than the span of his hand and didn't even begin to fade away until three weeks later.

But that's later.

Immer set off after Calla with all the fury of a bloodhound on the trail, he didn't stop after Max was declared 'dead', just moved on to the next target.

That's when things went wrong, you see, because Calla used a red striker crystal.

A red striker crystal.

Their weapons flashed again but Calla wasn't dumb enough to enter a lock with the obviously stronger young man. She tried to tire him out, deflecting and dodging and running circles. But he was as tireless as she was, and it seemed like neither of them would ever strike a point... but she did. A quick nick on the arm, but it was declared "serious" and suddenly he lost control of the arm.

Some technology, to simulate a bum arm.

He switched hands, ignoring the dead weight of his right arm, red eyes flashing with fury as he drove forward with a flurry of attacks that should have been impossible after a day's worth of fighting. He drove her back, striking and striking and striking, and sparks flew from their clashing weapons as it was all she could do to just keep blocking, her blue eyes starting to go wide with fear.

The red-

-her eyes were blue-

-the red striker crystal-

-in that moment he froze, looking down at her with his arm stretched high above his head for a killing blow, looking down at the red haze- at her eyes, for the first time, her _eyes_-

Then her knife was in his gut and he was dead.

Red and blue makes-

**OoOoOo**

"You did well."

"Mmm." Immer sat, brooding in his chair as lunch was served. The Storm Hawks had their own table, of course, but no one talked to Immer but Griffin. "Don't congratulate me."

No one ever talked to Immer but Griffin.

"Come on, kid, give yourself some credit. You made the finals!"

"She beat me."

"Everyone loses."

"I don't." Immer's eyes shot up to meet Griffin's green ones. Did Griffin see, in that moment, what the boy would become? Did he know that he would die by that hand he had held, back when the boy really _was _a boy and not a young man? A dark, dangerous young man?

No. Of course he didn't.

_Because he was Griffin._

The chair screamed as it was pulled out, and a body filled the space that had been empty (no one sat next to Immer except-) "Hi! I'm Calla, obviously. Immer, right?"

Immer surprised everyone by actually talking back. "Yes. You're the one that beat me. Savor it, because it won't ever happen again."

Maybe Calla would have left in the face of such hostility had it not been for Griffin. He smacked Immer on the back of the head and bellowed, loud enough for the whole dining hall to hear, _"YOU DO __**NOT **__TALK TO A WOMAN THAT WAY, IMMER, AND IF I EVER HEAR YOU USE SUCH A DISRESPECTFUL TONE OF VOICE AGAIN BY GOD I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND USE YOU AS A BELT!"_

So, somehow, they became friends.

God knows how.

**OoOoOo**

She was seventeen, like him, and almost a Knight. The only difference was that she wanted to be a Knight, and Immer knew that there simply was no other option for him but the road of violence, and he'd rather be on the right side of the law when he did it.

(Griffin didn't want to teach him how to be a Sky Knight at first, and to be honest Immer never wanted to be a Sky Knight per se, but there was no denying the boy had talent for fighting. Griffin knew that this need to fight needed to be channeled out in a healthy way, so in the best way to make sure Immer would never become what he eventually became, Griffin made him a page. Then Squire. And now he was on the verge of Knighthood and adulthood and he still had trouble understanding Griffin's selflessness, heroics, and all around good nature. If he didn't owe so much to Griffin, he might have hated him. And that thought made Immer anxious as hell.)

The Knight competition was soon after that- Griffin dominated, no surprise there. And fear of Griffin's wrath kept Immer on polite terms with Calla until the act became the reality and he tried to understand why. Immer felt like someone punched him in the stomach when she first looked at him, her dark blue eyes seeming almost purple in the right light. Yet she was just a normal girl... a normal, strong-willed girl, but nothing special. Immer knew he shouldn't be so fascinated by her...

.._but he was._

**OoOoOo**

_Play us a song, Immer, play us a song. Everyone wants to hear you play the guitar, Immer, it'll be fun. So Griffin taught you how? That's cool. It's an artistic what- outlet? What kind of silly thing is that?_

And so Immer found himself the center of attention once more that night at dinner, when Calla pressured him into playing.

I kiss the sun in your eyes.

Love unveiled, I can't deny.

Be my world- watch unfold.

Mesmerized.

Close your eyes and begin to breathe.

_Something's coming over me._

Did they see what he would become in that moment of awesome applause? The boy who sat with an acoustic guitar on his lap, the boy who was really a young man who didn't know where he came from but that Griffin found him one day strapped to a table in a secret underground place where the Atmosians had raided a Cyclonian stronghold? In those red eyes did they see a killer and a freak of nature and a thing who was finally stretching out membranous wings, coated in the slime of a placenta, a still born brought to life?

_Of course they didn't._

_All they heard was the sound of his fingers against the strings._

_For one night, one day, they didn't see, and they joined Griffin in his blindness._

**OoOoOo**

**A Year Later.**

He was not surprised to see they had fallen in love, Griffin and Calla.

("He's way older than you." "Not that much older." "When did this happen? How did this happen?" "I don't know, we really hit it off that day. We promised to see each other soon. Immer, are you OK?" by now she suspects the reason behind his vehemence and is feeling awkward. "No, I'm not OK. Why would I be OK?" That's when Griffin shows up and is all oblivious like "OK, let's get this show on the road! You first, Calla!" and Immer leaves before saying another word.)

That did not stop him from locking himself into his room, turning up the amp to his electric, and making his guitar _scream _his rage.

Things didn't get much better after that. Griffin came home to find the other Hawks complaining about Immer's noise and he goes and knocked on the door politely once before physically knocking it down. Griffin was a strong man.

Passion was never a word associated with Immer and yet there he was, wailing on that damn guitar, looking up only to fix Griffin with a garish smile and burning red eyes. Immer was kind of like a doll, only alive with a weapon in hand, always willing to led Griffin lead him along. He limply followed wherever the man went.

Only now it seemed, things had changed.

"Don't make me snap that thing in half."

"So you're back from your date."

"Well, I dunno if it was a date, but..."

"Don't fuck around with me!"

And Griffin was silent, stunned. Immer had never uttered a curse word before in his life. Thoughts swam through his head- _it's hormones, in fact I'm surprised it hasn't hit him till just now! Don't you remember how you were at that age? _Yadda, yadda.

The door is mended, Immer apologizes, and life returns to normal.

(Until Immer hallucinates a little girl in his room. The little girl tells him who he is, what he is, what he's meant to do. She says she thought he was dead, but something must have kick-started his connection with her. She is, of course, his Master, and his one and only love. The only thing that could make him more than a doll, because without her willpower, he had none. Without her drive, he was a doll. Without someone to direct him, he was lost. She tells him to kneel, to prove an example. She says, "kneel" and at the very word he drops to both knees, head bowed. She holds his head in her arm and presses it against her chest in a fond embrace. He wants to struggle, but when he feels that steady pulse on his cheek he falls into the deepest state of tranquility he has ever known.)

_Griffin, you are more than blind you are deaf, not to hear their conversations every night._

"If you don't want us together, I'll end it. I swear. You were here before her, you'll be here after her. Calla is just a girl."

Only that made him even angrier, even if he hid it well. Years of not feeling anything made it easy to slip back into that careless state. "I don't want you to leave her," he says, because it's the truth. "Not for me."

Not for meSHE'SNOTJUSTAGIRLSHE'S_THE_GIRLTHEONETHATWOKEMEUPYOUSTUPIDFUCK

"Are you..."

Immer snaps. "I already said I'm fine! As long as..." he falters, unsure of what to say next. This is more than he's spoken in a long time, especially to Griffin. They have fallen apart. They have become strangers, and now once more, Immer is in silence, and this time Griffin is not the one who talks to him, it is her.

"As long as?"

"Go with her.... only if... do you love her?"

Griffin laughs. "_Love_? Immer, that's... well I don't know if I love her- I mean it's too soon, man, I-"

"I'm asking you if you love her yet or not."

Is that IMPATIENCE I hear? From the robot? From the drone? Does he care? Does he want her for himself? Of course he does! Does he know why? He's sure as hell starting to!

"And I'm telling you it's too soon-"

"Well if you're not sure that you love her, then what the fuck are you doing with her? How can you not _know_!?!"

If Immer is so certain no one is supposed to know the way he _knows_ like when he sees- purple eyes- to know for certain that for once in your life god bless it this is real and he knows it-

Griffin snaps him out of it, grabbing him by the shoulders, gripping him tight, growling, "Ok, you know what Immer? This has been going on for months now and frankly I'm sick of your sudden attitude over a girl-"

"She's not just a girl!"

She's THE girl. The one that looks like HER. The one that woke him UP. The one that made him go INSANE, THANK YOU FOR FINDING MY MARBLES SIR I HAD LOST THEM QUITE SOME TIME AGO.

Somehow Griffin is on the floor and Immer's hands hurt like a bitch and the world is still. Griffin gets up, dusts himself off, and instead of laying into Immer like he should he is the most calm and rational creature you ever saw. "OK, you want to duke out your feelings? Let's go. A little tussle should set you straight. But let's make one thing clear, ai'ight? You're not the only one who's willing to get physical for her."

("Please, give me something. Anything. A necklace, a handkerchief-" "I'm not giving you my favor in this battle, Immer. I know what the fight is about." "Calla-" "You're my _friend_. I don't understand how, or when you started feeling this way, but-" "Since the moment I met you." "But Immer!" "Calla, it's the truth! I don't pretend to understand it but it _is_! Don't you understand? Don't you _know_?")

Nobody knowwwwwwwwwwws the troubles I've seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen nobody knowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwws and no one can beat Griffin in a fair fight on the ground or in the air. Immer tastes dirt and it is a bitter dish, sir, it does not suit his palate one bit. He picks himself up, arms shaking from the exertion of holding the sword up and bleeding from head to toe. Then he hits the floor again. The next thing he knows he's in his room onboard the _Condor _and it is night time.

Griffin carried him home.

When he was better, Immer left. He left for three weeks on his own, away from the ship and its ghosts, away from Griffin and Calla, away from civilization and sanity and goodness and happiness and sanity. He ran to a place where he did not have to hide to talk to the girl, and she told him everything.

"Despite our difference in size, we're not that far apart in age," she says to him while sitting on his lap, pulling his arms around her like a blanket against the night. They are in a cave on an uncharted Terra, recently killed game roasting in front of them. She's so small, he wonders if he was ever that small, and was that the reason Griffin took him in? Ignored the way he was dead until a weapon fitted his grip?

"How old am I?"

"Eleven."

"And you are-?"

"Ten."

Seven years ago he had looked like he was ten, so they assumed he was ten, and had counted the years wrong as a result. Griffin, you are dumb and blind and deaf. And when I say _dumb _I don't mean _mute_.

So he asks the question that has been burning him up inside.

"Who are you?"

"I am your master. I'm also not here. This is a message sent to you through our connection as master and servant. Right now I'm safely tucked away in my room in the castle."

"Who _are _you, though?"

And she tells him.

"We were made for each other, Ace. Quite literally."

Ace. He has a mark on his back that says Ace. It was there when Griffin found him in that underground place, strapped to the table with those dead eyes on the ceiling, waiting to connect, waiting to be made whole, waiting for her.

Her.

The girl.

THE girl.

**It's time to wake up, Ace. My dark ace, trump card, I had lost you but now I see you are here in the perfect position to strike where it hurts the most.**

And you will strike.

You will obey.

_You will obey._

_She kisses him on the lips like an infant, or a lover, and he wants to be neither, until the chill takes him over and the sword fits his hand and he grins, lurid and mad._

_Griffin, you are blind._

**OoOoOo**

**Now**

"It'll be easy. It's what you were born to do."

I look up at her, dizzy from having focused on the boy in my memories for so long. I had neglected her, I see now. That must not ever happen again. Why was my face wet, and why did it hurt? I find the child bundled in my arms and listen to her heartbeat to forget the unpleasantness.

"And when you are done you will come find me, so that we might meet in person for the first time, and not in these shadows of the mind."

"Yes, Master," I say, and she slips through my fingers like black smoke. I straighten, look outside the window of the home I had returned to as a prodigal son.

In the distance, Cyclonia grows closer. I hold a small purple scarf tightly in my hand- a token from my lover, a favor in the battle to come. The battle will arrive when the sky turns red and Cyclonia looms above me.

And with it, my future.

The intercom buzzes- Griffin speaks to me, probably in the hangar where he waits for me to take my place at his side.

"Immer? It's time."


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Because I'm assuming Tropica is a part of Atmosia.**

**OoOoOo**

Cyclonis sighed, reaching behind her to loop her arms around her husband's neck as he in turn wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close to him. They looked at the sun set, for a moment tricked into believing they were at home when the swollen, buttery globe turned the sky different shades of blood red and violet (like their eyes, as fate or irony would so have it).

Barefoot, she let the waves suck at the sand underneath her, wriggling her feet to help the process and get rooted in the spot before breaking free and doing it all over again. In a world that lived in the air, water was a precious commodoty, and she had never seen so much of it in one place.

"You're never too old to go do something new," she had said, by way of convincing the Dark Ace to go along. Truth be told he didn't need much convincing- he was far too used to her impromptu vacations to worry much. Now that the war was simmering down to an admittedly tranquil standstill, the event of them getting caught also worried him less. Chances were they'd be prisoners of war for perhaps three days before Moa paid the ransom and they were released. It was good not to have children in the house anymore. Unless you counted Bel, he seemed to have stuck at an emotional maturity level of thirteen and hadn't yet grown out of it at nineteen, but he did tend to take after his mother so they had hope for him.

They were silent for a while, just enjoying the beach, when the Dark Ace said something he'd never said before.

"I like these disguises."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"They're the ones we used the first time, though."

"I know." He held her tighter. "That's why I like them."


	30. Chapter 30

He remembered the first time she kissed him. And it _had _been her who kissed him, not the other way around. And as he felt the small shape lying next to him on the bed begin to stir and wake, he couldn't help but remember the first time he saw her. Everything came to him then, in vivid detail. She'd been four years old, and he had been seventeen. Both were considered prodigies, him in war and she in everything she set her swollen, barely-formed baby fingers on. He'd walked into the throne room, wearing his new Talon uniform, still covered in bandages from head to toe and with one arm in a sling from his last battle.

He'd expected to find Cyclonis in the throne- imagine his surprise to see Lark instead. Almost as if she had been waiting for him.

The shape next to him had finally woken up, one purple eye all he could see from under a mess of shaggy black hair. Propping himself up on one elbow, Ace muttered gloomily, "Good morning."

"...Dad?"

Habel half rose, mismatched eyes squinting uncertainly at the Dark Ace. It'd been over ten years since he'd slept in the same bed as either of his parents, and judging by the fact that this seemed to be his room he could safely assume he hadn't started sleepwalking again. "...Is there any particular reason you're in my bed?"

"Your mother kicked me out."

Habel winced in sympathy. "Ah." And then he sank back down into his pillows, giving his adoptive father a reassuring pat on the back before falling deeply back into sleep.

**OoOoOo**

Habel and Moa sat back to back on a bench in the training yard, watching the new recruits squirm under pressure from Snipe. Only half watching, actually- the only thing the new recruits could see of their future leaders was their profile. The scene was a common one, them sitting together and talking too low for anyone else to hear them. They'd been doing it in the same spot, in the same posture, for years.

"I'm not sure which is worse," Habel muttered to his half-sister, knees drawn up against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. "Wondering if they're having sex and being grossed out by the mental images or knowing they're not and knowing that's also a factor of a deteriorating relationship."

She scoffed, closing her eyes and resting her chin against her chest, almost as if she'd fallen asleep right there. "That's surprisingly insightful, coming from you."

"Oh. You're right. Sorry." He turned around and bellowed into her ear: "OUR PARENTS AREN'T SLEEPING TOGETHER! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!"

Moa opened her eyes and sat up straighter only to wriggle her pinky finger into her ringing left ear. Grinning, Habel half fell on top of her, his arms around her shoulders and his chin propped up on top of her head. They ignored anybody who might be staring; they were used to it. Especially Habel for his by-now-not-so-secret choice in bed partners. Which was why he wasn't surprised to find himself lying next to a man that morning so much by the fact that it was his father.

He wasn't flamboyant about it- he didn't swing his hips when he walked or had that peculiar lisp or weakness in the wrists, but he was very much homosexual. The only reason everybody knew about it was because he'd just slept with _so many freaking Talons already _it was impossible not to know. His parents were more bothered by the quantity of his lovers than their gender and, though shocked, were quite accepting since after all they still had Moa to rely on for an heir.

(Cyclonis didn't mind taboo. Her relationship with his father was taboo, and she was fair in her own way. Also, she found it a little hard to truly grasp _homosexual_ as an actual state of being.)

(Plus, the Dark Ace could be relieved that it wasn't his _genetic_ son that was gay_._ That made it a little easier to swallow.)

(And Moa was the only one who knew so far- besides a certain female Talon- that Habel was actually bisexual.)

(Habel enjoyed being confusing.)

"You're overreacting," Moa said, not moving to return the embrace- she rarely did, these days. "They just had a fight and they'll be over it soon enough."

"I know, I know." Habel shrugged, turning around again so their backs rested against each other once more. "I was just speculating, is all."

They remained like this, in comfortable silence, until a blot in the sky became a Switchblade became alarming when it hurtled towards the Terra and didn't seem to be slowing down. Tensing up, Moa grabbed Habel by the sleeve of his shirt and dragged him from the bench, shouting-

"_Get down_!"

-just before it landed three yards from where they had been sitting.

His hair in a wild halo around his head, Habel blinked up at the red skies of Cyclonia, wondering, if this morning was any indication of how the rest of the day would go, he could do worse things than heading back to bed and not getting up until tomorrow. Instead he got up and, a little unsteady from the sudden rush of adrenaline, joined his sister where she was already kneeling by the craft, helping the Talon out of his mangled seat. One of his legs was a bloody mess- almost indistinguishable from the metal, it had been smashed underneath the Switchblade as he landed. Habel didn't need a degree in medicine to know a need for amputation when he saw one- there _was _no leg. It was bloody, pulpy, red jell-o with splintery white sprinkles.

"Call for the medic," Habel said, voice smooth as Snipe came lumbering over. "No- inform the medic we'll be arriving shortly. I believe in this situation it's better to take the wounded to the doctor than the doctor to the wounded."

"What are you talking about? You _never_ move a wounded person when you don't know the extent of their injuries!" There was a warning in Moa's voice. "Wait for the stretcher, Bel."

Habel ignored her. Before anyone could do anything, he had moved. With an expert flick of his hand, a crystal slipped out from the secret pocket inside his sleeve. A flash of light buzzed and crackled, a sheet of golden energy cutting off the leg where it started to deteriorate and instantly cauterizing the wound. Tossing the crystal up in the air, he caught it behind his back only to pull the same hand forward holding a completely different crystal. A solid red hand grabbed the Talon by the middle and lifted him up, carted behind Habel as he walked to the medical station with a frustrated Moa tagging along.

"You just have to show off."

In response, Habel began to put a little more bounce to his step. Making sure he wasn't jostling his groaning, semi-lucid patient, he began to sing. Moa didn't recognize the song, but it had "show off" in the lyrics and that was annoying enough for her to snatch a crystal off a pouch in her belt and zap him with it, rendering him totally mute. She was, after all, second in line for the throne. Her mother had even taught her more about crystals than she had with Habel, and Ravess had taught her rigid discipline. In many ways she was probably more suited to rule than Habel, save for the fact that Habel was more inclined towards the sneaky political side of ruling than she was, and could charm just about anyone into doing anything he wanted.

"Pay attention to what you're doing," she snapped at him, shoving him forward towards the med ward. "There's a man's life in your hands."

In response, he flashed her a brilliant, completely insincere smile that might have looked better on a carnivorous animal than a young man.

**OoOoOo**

Bump.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry."

Cyclonis rubbed her lower back, pouting and glancing back at the sharp edge of the throne that had jabbed into her. "Careful when you're kissing me, Ace."

"It's not my fault you lost your balance."

"It is if I say it is."

"_Master Cyclonis_!"

They both looked up in alarm as the doors to the throne room burst open and Moa strode in, two Talons flanking either side of her. "There's an urgent message from-" she paused, pursing her lips as she noticed her mother trying to inconspicuously readjust her collar. "Oh, good. You're kissing again."

Her mother's eyes flashed. "The report, Moa."

Moa shook her head, returning back to the role of Ace-In-Waiting. "He won't speak to me. He says the message is for your ears only. It's better if you just follow me to the medical ward, Master."

**OoOoOo**

The next day, everyone could feel the stillness in the air. All activity was called to a temporarily halt, all forces called back to home in case of war. There had been a brutal, bloody skirmish on the borders between Atmosia and Cyclonia- the first in nine years. Tensions were high, to say the least.

There was only one person in the entire stronghold who moved without purpose, without direction. Orders and questions buzzed through one ear and soared out the other. Moa strode through the hallways, arteries of the great, pulsing center of her world, and felt nothing. Not the soldiers who bumped past her and profusely apologized, or those who had to press themselves against the walls of the narrower hallways to avoid her.

Red eyes glazed, she found herself in front of a door. It didn't open automatically for her, and when she looked up she found it wasn't her room, or even Habel's, but Ravess'.

She pressed her fist against it, not hard enough to knock, and kept it there. The cold metal warmed from her body heat and she spread her fingers wide, pressing her palm against the door now.

She shouldn't.

She shouldn't.

But there was no one around to hear her, or see her, or tell her parents what she was doing. How utterly mad it was.

"Ravess," the princess said, to test her voice, to see if it was still working. No one could have heard her- as if there was anyone there to hear her in the first place. "Ravess," she said louder, slapping her palm against the metal. "Ravess. Please open the door. If you're in there, open it now." As an afterthought: "That's an order, Ravess!"

Even though technically Ravess out-ranked her, she was still the Princess.

Silent, unmoving, cold, insensitive. The door remained shut.

"_Ravess_-!" It started as a raw shout, because she couldn't keep it inside her any longer, because she didn't care if anyone heard her, but no. Something seemed to snag at the words, yank them back down inside her to where they were spawned. Croaking, without the willpower to say it once more, Moa completely broke down, her legs giving way underneath her until she was kneeling at the door. Trying to wipe the tears away as fast as they fell with one hand, the other remained glued to the door, waiting for it to glide under her flesh and cause her to fall forward onto the floor because there was nothing there to support her weight any longer.

But no one ever opened it.

**OoOoOo**

Far too used to his near-silent entries by now, Cyclonis could tell by the mere shifting of the air pressure in the room that the Dark Ace had arrived. "Oh, what now?" she snapped, irritated, her eyes glued to the crystal machine in front of her. "I'm busy. I'm _harried_. I'm on the verge of fucking war again and I'm working so that I might not have to send my aging husband and my battle-virgin daughter to the front lines. So _what_?" with that last word she whirled around to face him, arms akimbo. "_What_, Ace? It had better be important."

Unperturbed, he crossed his arms and said, "Talk to her."

She turned around again, one hand hesitating before she remembered which lever to pull and began to work again. "About?"

"You're not nearly oblivious enough to not notice she hasn't left her quarters since Ravess died."

"I'm not, and never have been, the ideal mother figure," Cyclonis said, the flash of a chemical reaction before her eyes entrancing her for a moment. "But I know her well enough to know I'm the last person she wants to see right now. As unpleasant as that might be for me to accept."

The Dark Ace made a noise of frustration. "Listen- she's doing this- _crystal_ thing-" he tried to articulate what the problem was.

"Uhuh?"

"I can't go near her room."

"Mm."

"It's just this giant red miasma. The only one who can go through is Habel."

"And he is-?"

"Bringing her food. Not telling me what she's up to."

"The usual pseudo-rebellion. I expected as much. Let them keep their silence; it adds to their bond as siblings." _Flash_.

"Don't act so nonchalant."

"I am _busy_, Dark Ace. And she's an adult. Roughly."

"One that's never felt death before. And she's not handling it well."

A mechanical hand held a crystal in front of her, letting her examine it. "She knows death," Cyclonis said, distant once more. "But everyone reacts differently when it's the death of someone close. So until the moment where I absolutely must talk to her or send her on some sort of mission, I'll fetch her, but until then give her her spac-"

"Not necessary."

The Dark Ace and Cyclonis turned around. Moa stood there in the doorway at attention, red eyes even as they gazed into her mother's.

Cyclonis was only half-turned, but after a moment she stepped away from her machine down to her daughter, stopping in front of her and looking up. From out of nowhere appeared a small envelope, pulled out of Cyclonis' sleeve with her usual flourish. "This is for you," she said. "And... is there anything you need?"

Moa took the letter, tilting her head to the side. "...Need?"

"Anything I can do," she clarified. "Any way I can... help."

She reached up and touched Moa's cheek, briefly, but fondly.

Moa shook her head '_no_'.

"Then do me a favor and drag your father out of here before he gives me a headache."

"Yes, ma'am."

**OoOoOo**

Habel tossed the letter back at her. "Wish I could say I'm surprised." He yawned, stretching his arms above his head and falling backwards onto his bed.

She sat down next to him. "Thanks?"

"Oh. Right. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"So Ravess left you..."

"Her job. Her instruments. Her weapons. Her books. And anything Snipe didn't want. Which was-"

"Everything."

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"She was..." Her hands folded on her lap. She looked down at them, felt a tear break loose. "A very special woman."

**OoOoOo**

**A Few Weeks Later..**

"Let me go with you."

Cyclonis pulled her cape on, looking down at her husband from where he still laid on their bed. "Absolutely not," she said. "This is a mission of peace."

The Dark Ace stood up, running a hand through his hair, which had lost a bit of its substance over the years but still remained pitch black. "Which could turn messy in the blink of an eye."

Cyclonis smirked. Getting back on the bed, she settled onto his lap, arms around his neck. "Atmosians don't have the spine for that kind of dirty dealing," she told him, kissing him briefly. "_We're_ the bad guys, remember?"

"Peh."

"Your presence is associated with violence. Mine simply evokes fear. So _you_ stay. I'll take Moa, she's almost as good as you."

"Almost."

"Almost."

With a single kiss as her parting gift, she got up and left.

**OoOoOo**

At first it was like a normal patrol- except her mother was with her. Then, the red skies began to lighten into violet and they didn't head back towards home, instead stopping on an uninhabited Terra to camp for the night. The next morning, Moa got her first taste of blue Atmosian skies. Irrationally, she wondered if the color meant the air would be colder. But the high altitude winds remained at a constant, without a dip or a rise in temperature.

The Atmosians were waiting for them.

She heard her mother laugh. "So predictable. We're on time and they're early. They want to make sure we don't cause trouble- already scared of us and we haven't even shown up yet."

Moa tightened her grip on her handlebars, taking comfort from the weight of the quiver full of arrows on her back and the straight sword at her side. "Do we... normally cause trouble?"

"Trouble is an understatement, my dear. We cause _war_."

"I know that, but do we have a history of sour peace treaties?"

"Generally, yes. You'd think these Atmosians would have learned. Fortunately for us they're ill-organized and soft-hearted, and we're actually here for a cease-fire this time, so this should go swimmingl-"

Her throat tightened.

Moa glanced at her, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

"Oh, _shit_," Cyclonis muttered, eyes trained on the convoy of Sky Knights ahead of them.

Moa was instantly on alert. She flew a little closer to the Master, asking: "What? What is it?"

Cyclonis shook her head. "Nothing. Just a surprise."

Then the two parties had met, with the agreed-upon space of twenty yards separating them in the sky. The afternoon sun beat down on them in the cloudless air, the constant winds causing the multicolored banners of no less than five Sky Knight Squadrons and the single red-and-black of Cyclonia's roosting raven to flutter and flap.

Holding out one arm, Cyclonis spoke to Moa without looking at her. "The bird, dear."

Moa unstrapped the cage from the side of her ride, pulling a trained hawk from within, a note tied to its leg. She transferred it to her mother's armored forearm, pulling the hood free from the bird's eyes.

"Go."

With a swing of her arm she let the bird loose. It flapped its wings and zoomed over to the other side, landing on the arm of a handsome red-haired man with a very familiar insignia on his breastplate. Suddenly, Moa knew what had her mother so agitated. She flew as close to the Master as she dared, hissing between clenched teeth: "Mother, that's Aerrow Strike. As in, _the_ Aerrow Strike. As in the never-lost-a-sky-duel-"

"Lies and propaganda."

"But he beat _dad_."

"He never beat me."

Moa had nothing to say to that, so she changed topic. "I thought the Storm Hawks disbanded?"

"They did."

"Shit, mom."

"I believe I said that already."

They sat, straight-backed, in their seats, waiting for Aerrow to read the peace treaty and send back some sort of response. Knowing the way things worked, Cyclonis estimated that they could be floating here all day long. She was prepared for that, though- there wasn't a single generic Switchblade among the elite Talons she had brought with her today. They were all more fuel-friendly, and could in fact stay afloat all day if they needed to.

After he read it, Aerrow looked up at them. And from across the space between the two parties, he lifted one arm and waved at them. Cyclonis gave no response, other than a sidelong glance at her daughter, and a raised eyebrow. "Does he expect me to wave back?" she wondered out loud.

Moa gazed on in astonishment. "You know, I think he does."

Quite suddenly there was a loud crackle in the air. All the soldier jumped- only to realize it was a pair of speakers being turn on. "-_r me? Is this thing on? Oh. Ahem_."

Cyclonis squinted.

"Hey!"

"...good lord..."

"_Is that your daughter? She looks like you. Got your- er- looks the same when she's mad."_

"....he is actually trying to make small talk..."

"_So, uh, I'm about to have another kid too. Guess you got a head start on me though. That one looks like she's all grown up already._"

"Mother, is this some sort of trap? Is he trying to get us to let our guard down?"

"No, dear, this is just Aerrow."

Aerrow, perhaps realizing he wasn't getting a response this way, decided to barge right into what he really wanted to say. "_Now, this is a delicate situation we find ourselves in." _He waved the message at them, the paper flapping in the winds. _"And you surprise me by being reasonable in the terms and condi-_"

_Click_.

"_**You**__ were the ones who attacked our Talons without provocation_!"

Cyclonis reached over and smacked at the console to Moa's Switchblade, shutting off the microphone. "Moa, we're trying to not start another war here. Save the finger-pointing to a time when things aren't such a tinderbox ready to explode." Purple eyes burned. "So answer me this: Am I going to have to hit you instead of the machine next? Like a child?"

Aerrow had responded. _"Sorry, Princess, but they were way out of Cyclonian territory when they got shot down. Also, I can't speak for the ones who shot. Yelling at me won't make much a difference_."

"Goodness, he's not threatening to wedgie us. I suppose he has grown." Then Cyclonis flicked on her microphone. "_I brought a bird so we wouldn't have to shout."_

"_I like talking better. You can't read a person through the ink."_

"_But you're not reading me. You're reading the **ink**. I'm sure you're aware there hasn't been any trouble between our countries for some time now. I'm gaining something of a reputation as a peace maker among the Cyclonians, you know. So all I'm asking is for you to sign the paper, turn around, and we can all go on with our blessedly uneventful lives."_

"_Great. Sounds good to me."_

"_Then do it, Storm Hawk, and let's be done with this business."_

_Aerrow looked over at Moa, very obviously scrutinizing her. "Seriously though. When she's mad? Just like you."_

"_**The treaty, Aerrow**."_

"_Right. Sorry._

**OoOoOo**

The Dark Ace paced the hangar. He hadn't left it since early that morning, still waiting for some word from the Master. Habel came by once or twice to keep him company, when he wasn't busy performing the Master's usual duties.

"You know, I rather like this whole being in charge thing."

The Dark Ace sat on the edge of his Switchblade. "Well. I suppose you'd better get used to it. It'll be your full-time job someday."

"I hope you're there to see it. Knowing you, though, you're likely to go out in a firey explosion before I hit twenty."

"I like the way that sounds."

"What?"

"Sounds like a good way to go. Big explosion. Everybody watching."

"And they say I'm an attention whore."

"No, son, they just say you're a whore."

"...I walked right into that one."

The Dark Ace threw a smirk in Habel's direction. But then he grew solemn again, glancing out at the empty horizon. Moving towards the lockers, he returned with a helmet and a pair of goggles. Throwing them at Habel, he said, "Come on."

"What?"

"We're leaving. They should be on their way back- we'll meet them halfway there."

"Has anyone ever told you you're a paranoid old fucker?"

"I have been called many things, but paranoid was never one of them."

"So they've called you an old fucker?"

"Watch it."

Habel squeezed the helmet on tight. "Watching it."

**OoOoOo**

Cyclonis rolled her eyes heavenward. "Oh. Right on schedule."

Moa peered out into the night sky. "Is that the man who sired me and my unfortunate whelp of a brother?"

"It is, in fact, them. I knew he wouldn't be able to sit still for long."

Cyclonis sent the other Talons to way stations, soon she was flying alone with Moa, headed towards the lone Switchblade headed their way. The first thing she did was scold Habel: "Why aren't you piloting your own sky ride?"

Habel had a response ready. "Because I'm lazy, Mother."

"I'd better see you training all day tomorrow."

"Yes, Mother."

"Stop _mother_ing me."

"Sorry, Mother."

The Dark Ace reached behind him and gave Habel a smack on the back of the head, designed to be loud rather than to cause any actual damage. Moa waved at him. "Hi Dad. Bel."

Habel responded first, as usual. "Moa, my sweet. I missed you."

"Out of my Switchblade," Dark Ace said.

Moa grinned at him. "It was fun while it lasted," she said, nimbly leaping out of her seat and onto the Dark Ace's wings. "Mom, why don't you ride with the Dark Ace? I'll take Habel home and see if he hasn't learned how to manage a set of wings yet."

"Excellent idea," opined the Dark Ace. "Get your ass on the seat, boy."

There was a quick transfer of bodies- The Dark Ace had his beloved Switchblade (and his wife) back, and soon the heirs were revving their respective motors and giving each other nasty grins and making bets to see who would reach the stronghold first.

Moa started the countdown. "On your mark, get set-"

Habel took off.

"_You little brat_! _I'm gonna kill you_!"

The Dark Ace and Cyclonis were left in a cloud of exhaust, coughing and waving the afterburn away from their faces. "I really wish I knew when they were joking," Cyclonis confessed, sighing. Then she twisted in her seat to look at her husband in the eyes, smiling softly.

"...Hi."

"Hi."

Turning to face forward again, Cyclonis took the handlebars and began to fly. "Guess who was there at the meeting today. Starts with an A and ends with a-"

The Dark Ace made a very loud, very sudden noise of hatred and anger, slamming one heel into the side of his Switchblade. "_Him_?"

"Yup."

"Doesn't he have anything better to do than _constantly_ be a-"

"Calm down."

"I will _never_. Calm down." He paused. "_Ever_."

"All right, all right, then let's talk about something else if you're going to be a hothead."

"Like what? I want to know how it went."

"It went."

He shook his head, knowing he wasn't going to get any sort of straight answer from her. He would just have to wait until they got home, to ask Moa for a full debriefing. Which, by the way, seemed like it would take forever, because Cyclonis was flying at a leisurely pace. Every so often she glanced up at the clear cloudless skies, admiring the stars. The Dark Ace had become somewhat inured to the sky, since he was constantly in it, but he knew that Cyclonis was most often landlocked, and decided to let her enjoy the night.

He rested his chin on top of her head.

And then he remembered again.

"Do you recall..." he started, before slowly straying off. "Never mind."

"What?"

"Well... the first time you kissed me."

"Nostalgic, Ace?"

"A little." He reached around her, holding her tight. "You were four years old, you know."

Cyclonis gave a startled laugh, looking over her shoulder. "_What_? What do you mean?"

"I mean, the first time you kissed me you were four years old. You probably don't remember- hell I try not to remember."

"Tell me about it."

"It was... Well, you were always an oddball."

"Come on, Ace. Tell me. We have all the time in the world."

**OoOoOo**

She'd been four years old, and he had been seventeen. Both were considered prodigies, him in war and she in everything she set her swollen, barely-formed baby fingers on. He'd walked into the throne room, wearing his new Talon uniform, still covered in bandages from head to toe and with one arm in a sling from his last battle.

He'd expected to find Cyclonis in the throne- imagine his surprise to see Lark instead. Almost as if she had been waiting for him.

"What are you doing here, brat?"

The child looked up at him, already haughty, already smug, already assured of her continued reign of terror over this stronghold. "Oh, you're that new kid," she said, a child's lisp only barely evident. "The Knight."

"I'm not a Knight. Where's your father?"

"Who cares?"

"I care, you obnoxious pest."

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. "That's obnoxious pest is going to be your Master someday," said the former Cyclonis, yanking Ace aside. "Lark, that's no way to talk to your champion."

"My what?"

"He's yours, child. Your protector. Only the finest soldier we have, and the most loyal. Apologize to him."

**OoOoOo**

"...So you did."

"Did I really? Kiss and make up? That's... rather cute."

"Cute my ass, you were a-"

"Habel?"

"Yes. You were Habel. You were like an evil mix of Habel and Moa when she was still small. Christ, she was a monster." They fell into a comfortable silence again, accompanied by only the stars.

Silence.

"You're a better kisser now, by the way."

"I had help. See, there was this really sexy teacher...Lovely green eyes, red hair..."

He pinched her. She laughed.

"You don't miss things the way they used to be, do you?"

"I'm not normally one for such sentimental emotions as regret and nostalgia, Master. Today is today, and tomorrow hopefully will still be there when I wake up."

"Lovely philosophy, Dark Ace. It suits you."

The titles are habit and routine. The days of the constant power struggles were long gone- most likely because they decided to join forces against the threat of their own children's dangerous pride and self-confidence. He knew her as Lark in his heart, and his name was no longer secret to her either.

"Hey," he said on a whim.

She turned around again when he didn't continue, wondering what it was he wanted to say when he caught her chin in his hand and tilted her head up, catching her lips in a tight, clinging kiss.


End file.
